Sustainable Synergies between the Cultural and Tourism Industries: An Efficiency Evaluation Perspective

Abstract

Cultural tourism has received widespread attention for its role in promoting cultural heritage and economic growth. However, there is insufficient research regarding how to verify the synergy between culture and tourism and how to ensure its sustainability in the integration of the cultural and tourism industries (CTI). This study establishes an interdisciplinary composite analytical framework from the perspective of efficiency evaluation. China, a country that has advocated the integration of CTI since 2009, is the research setting. The findings indicate that the technical efficiency of the tourism industry has increased significantly since the involvement of the cultural industry. Meanwhile, economically underdeveloped regions have opportunities to catch up with developed regions in terms of technical efficiency, and they perform better in terms of sustainable productivity growth. Importantly, U-shaped and inverted U-shaped curves were found in the coordinate systems composed of groups comprising the coupling coordination degree and the efficiency-related index, respectively. This finding reveals the existence of a running-in effect in the integration process of CTI, thereby contributing to both theory and policy-making.Sustainability 2019, 11, 6607 2 of 20 arts, design, fashion, new media)" [8]. Thus, currently, the integration of culture and tourism is spreading and is omnipresent, and destinations rich in cultural and tourism resources usually have a high degree of consistency or overlap in the market [1,9,10]. Exploring and evaluating the synergy between culture and tourism is conducive to enhancing theoretical understanding, promoting joint marketing, and inspiring policy-making. However, there is still insufficient research regarding how to verify this synergy and how best to sustain it during the integration of the culture and tourism industries (CTI). Quantitative research in the related field only focuses on a single sector from an efficiency evaluation perspective [11][12][13] or on the degree of coupling coordination between them [14]; it is still rare to regard culture and tourism as industries and explore the synergy between them from an interdisciplinary point of view.By regarding the CTI together as a complete system or black box, in this study we established a composite evaluation framework consisting of three dimensions from the perspective of efficiency evaluation, to measure the technical efficiency, sustainable productivity growth, and coupling coordination degree. Specifically, the slacks-based measure (SBM) model of data envelopment analysis (DEA), the Malmquist index of total factor productivity (TFP), and the coupling coordination degree model were applied in the research. We further examined the impact of the cultural industry on efficiency and compared the relationships between various outcomes.This study utilized data from 31 Chinese provinces and regions from 2010 to 2016. There are several reasons why China is an ideal setting to study these issues. First, China is one of the world'...

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