The Coupling Coordination Relationship between Tourism Competitiveness and Economic Growth of Developing Countries

On the basis of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and information entropy weight method, this study examined the relationship between tourism competitiveness and economic growth of 56 developing countries from 2008 to 2017. The results show that: (1) the overall status of the CCD between tourism competitiveness and economic growth was in a state of unbalance that was mainly caused by the lag of economic growth, which demonstrates the important contribution of tourism in developing regions. (2) the CCD has been gradually improving since 2008, and the differences amongst the CCDs of developing countries have been shrinking and (3) the spatial distribution of the CCD between tourism competitiveness and economic growth has heterogeneity. Latin America & the Caribbean, and East Asia & the Pacific have the highest CCD, whereas Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed severely unbalanced development between tourism competitiveness and economic growth in 2008-2017.