No abstract

Cultural diffusion is an important noneconomic determinant of tourism demand but has received less focus in the literature. This study seeks to address this gap by focusing on the impact of the Confucius Institute, an important institution of Chinese cultural diffusion, on inbound tourism to China. It is shown that the Confucius Institute positively contributes to the Chinese inbound tourism flows, even when the endogeneity of Confucius Institutes is considered. Moreover, the impact of the Confucius Institute on China’s inbound tourism has a lagged effect and regional heterogeneity. In addition, cultural distance is a mediating variable of the Confucius Institute on tourism demand. As cultural distance increases, the impact of the Confucius Institute on China’s international tourism flow first rises and then decreases.

No abstract

Marine litter poses numerous threats to the global environment. To estimate the social costs of marine litter in China, two stated preference methods, namely the contingent valuation model (CVM) and the choice experiment model (CEM), were used in this research. This paper conducted surveys at ten different beaches along the East China Sea in Zhejiang province in October 2017. The results indicate that approximately 74.1% of the interviewees are willing to volunteer to participate in clean-up programmes and are willing to spend 1.5 days per month on average in their daily lives, which equates to a potential loss of income of USD 1.08 per day. The willingness to pay for the removal of the main types of litter ranges from USD 0.12–0.20 per visitor across the four sample cities, which is mainly determined by the degree of the removal, the crowdedness of the beach and the visitor’s perception. The social costs are USD 1.08–1.40 per visitor when the contingent valuation method is applied and USD 1.00–1.07 per visitor when the choice experiment method is adopted, which accounts for 8–14% of the beach entrance fee. The analysis of the social costs of marine litter yielded some useful implications regarding future coastal management policy, including extra entrance fee, the quality-oriented environmental strategy and more incentives to volunteers.

No abstract