Does rural tourism always promote the county economy? An empirical analysis based on a difference-in-differences model

Rural tourism is often viewed as a driver of county growth, yet evidence on whether its benefits are uniform across space and institutional settings remains limited. Using a balanced panel of 1,770 Chinese counties from 2004 to 2023 and a staggered difference-in-differences (staggered DID) design exploiting the designation of Leisure Agriculture and Rural Tourism Demonstration Counties (LARTDCs), we estimate the effect of rural tourism development on county-level economic growth. We find a significant positive average effect, but no significant effect in western counties, counties with higher administrative rank, or counties with relatively low tourism-resource endowments; spatial spillovers are detectable within 10 km and at longer distances beyond 30 km, and they weaken with distance. These findings show that the growth effects of rural tourism are spatially bounded and context dependent, contributing new evidence on the heterogeneous local effects of rural tourism policy.