Urban low-carbon transition and tourism competitiveness: a quasi-natural experiment

Despite global low-carbon transitions, the causal effect of Urban Low-carbon Transition (ULCT) on Urban Tourism Competitiveness (UTC) remains unexplored. This study investigates this relationship by treating China’s low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a time-varying Difference-in-Differences (DID) model on panel data from 272 Chinese cities (2005-2019), we find that ULCT significantly enhances overall UTC. Decomposing UTC into four dimensions reveals that this positive effect extends to tourist attraction, tourism industry, ecological, and socio-economic competitiveness. Mechanism analyses indicate that industrial structure rationalization acts as a negative mediator for attraction and industry competitiveness but a positive one for socio-economic competitiveness. In contrast, industrial structure advancement is a positive mediator for industry competitiveness. Furthermore, innovation input and environmental regulation serve as positive mediators for improving ecological and socio-economic competitiveness. The effects are more pronounced in eastern and central China, lower-tier cities, and resource-dependent cities. As the first to integrate ULCT and UTC into a unified framework, this study elucidates the underlying mechanisms, offering crucial insights for policymakers to synergize low-carbon goals with tourism development.