Smart Tourism Cities and Income Equity: How Digital Economy Reshapes Urban-Rural Disparities

In the context of the rapid rise of the digital economy, comprehending its role in shaping urban-rural income dynamics has become increasingly critical. This study focuses on smart tourism cities (a hallmark of the digital economy) to examine how the digital economy influences the urban-rural income gap from a tourism perspective. Despite the growing prominence of the digital economy, its specific impact on urban-rural income disparities in tourism-dependent regions remains underexplored, motivating this investigation. This study selects 71 key tourism cities over the period 2012–2019 and employs advanced analytical methods, including mediating effects analysis, multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) testing, instrumental variable approaches, robustness testing, and heterogeneity analysis. The findings indicate that: first, the digital economy significantly reduces the urban-rural income gap in tourism cities; second, tourism serves as a key mediating variable in this process; third, after conducting an exogenous shock test using a multi-period DID econometric model based on the "Broadband China" initiative, the conclusions remain robust; fourth, the digital economy's impact on narrowing the income gap is particularly pronounced in second-tier and lower-tier cities, especially in third-tier and lower-tier cities, while no significant effect is observed in first-tier cities. In summary, the development of the digital economy effectively narrows the urban-rural income gap in tourism cities. Therefore, governments should prioritize enhancing the construction of smart and digital tourism cities to further promote balanced regional development.