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The Spatiotemporal Relationship between Tourism Eco-Efficiency and Economic Resilience from Coupling Perspectives in China

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10039; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310039

by Yuan Zhao^1,2 and Xinyang Wu^1,*

Reviewer 1:

Mirela Stanciu

Reviewer 2:

Fernando António De Oliveira Tavares

Reviewer 3:

Snežana Štetić

Reviewer 4:

Yugang He

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10039; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310039

Submission received: 9 May 2023 / Revised: 19 June 2023 / Accepted: 21 June 2023 / Published: 25 June 2023

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development of Ecotourism)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author, thank you for your contribution. The paper elaborated is interesting.

For this, I congratulate the authors for the effort in this field.

I think the paper needs some minor corrections as follows:

I suggest that the introduction be approx. 0.5 pages. At the end of the introduction, the purpose of the paper must be specified, and the last sentence must refer to the structure of the paper by chapters.

I suggest that after the introduction there should be a separate chapter of Literature Review on the topic of your choice: Tourism Eco-efficiency and Economic Resilience. These are now found in the introduction. You just must organize them a little differently.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1:I suggest that the introduction be approx. 0.5 pages. At the end of the introduction, the purpose of the paper must be specified, and the last sentence must refer to the structure of the paper by chapters.

Response 1:

Revision of the introduction.

Introduction

Tourism is a strategic pillar industry in China. The development of tourism can meet the growing material and cultural needs of the people [1-2]. However, in the process of rapid development of tourism, there are obstacles such as fragile ecological environment, weak infrastructure, unreasonable industrial structure, uneven regional development, and insufficient capital investment [3]. Eco-efficiency and economic resilience are two key issues in the sustainable development process of tourism [4]. Tourism eco-efficiency is an effective measure of sustainable tourism development with the ideal goal of pursuing "minimum input, maximum output" and achieving a two-way measurement of tourism development efficiency [5-7]. The term resilience was first applied to the field of engineering and was later cited in ecology, economics, and other fields [8]. The increased economic resilience helps to counter the impediments to sustainable development [9]. In the new economic normal, a one-sided focus on the resilience of the tourism industry will to some extent produce industrial redundancy and lag in development [10-11]. Therefore, the tourism industry needs to closely integrate efficiency and resilience to form a rational and orderly endogenous growth mechanism based on synergistic development. The concept of coupling was first seen in physics theory, which refers to the process of two or more systems eventually reaching a joint state through interaction and mutual attraction, thus completing a transformation from disorder to order. Tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience are closely linked in the tourism land system, and problems in either of them will threaten the development of the tourism system as a whole. From the sustainability research paradigm, it is crucial to promote the coupled and coordinated research of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience, which can serve both as a scientific basis for the realization of sustainable development goals in tourism places and as a reference for the practical work of ecological civilization construction [12-13]. The 20th Party Congress report proposed that "building an ecological civilization is a thousand-year plan for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation," emphasizing the importance of environmental protection in Chinese economic development [14-15]. Therefore, this study explores the development level of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience based on the coordination degree model to analyze the coupled coordination relationship between the two and puts forward targeted development suggestions in order to reduce the vulnerability of the tourism industry, enhance the resilience of the tourism economy, and achieve high-quality sustainable development of tourism. In addition, it can also provide a theoretical reference for the coordinated development of tourism eco-efficiency and the tourism economy in China in the new era.

The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows: Section 2 elaboration the literature on tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience in dialogue with cutting-edge and authoritative literature. Section 3 is the research methodology and data sources, which not only constructs the indicator system of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience but also lists the specific methods used. Section 4 presents the research findings, including the development levels and spatial and temporal distribution patterns of tourism eco-efficiency, economic resilience, and the coupling degree of both. Section 5 is the discussion, including theoretical implications, managerial implications, and sustainability recommendations. Section 6 is the findings and limitations of this study for future research.

Point 2:I suggest that after the introduction there should be a separate chapter of Literature Review on the topic of your choice: Tourism Eco-efficiency and Economic Resilience. These are now found in the introduction. You just must organize them a little differently.

Response 2:

Revision of the literature review.

Literature Review

2.1. Tourism Eco-efficiency

2.2. Economic Resilience

Reggiani et al. pioneered the concept of economic resilience, defined as a regional financial system's ability to withstand shocks and recover and rebuild in the face of changes in the environment, markets, and other factors [23]. Li et al. point out that economic resilience is derived from evolutionary resilience and is dynamically changing [24]. In academia, there are currently two approaches to measuring and assessing economic resilience. The first uses simulations such as resilience evolution curves or impulse response functions, which can reflect external shocks [25-26]. In quantitative measurement, economic resilience is measured by constructing a system of relevant indicators [27-29] Liu et al. use risk absorption intensity and absorption duration to quantitatively measure macroeconomic resilience [30]. The other is to construct a system of indicators for comprehensive measurement, which can reasonably consider the multidimensional influencing factors of economic resilience and, help to avoid subjective errors. The combination of efficiency and toughness is also gradually being studied. Xu et al. (2017) defined regional economic resilience as the adaptive capacity exhibited by a region in the face of external crisis disruptions [25]. They measured the strength of resilience during economic downturns using a sensitivity index. Regional economic resilience is measured by selecting a core variable in regional economic development (e.g., regional employment or unemployment rate, GDP, gross value added, and disposable income) in a state of shock. The prerequisite for using this method is the identification of shocks and perturbations and the delineation of the phases of change, and the technique focuses on the ability to cope with short-term shocks [26].

2.3. Literature Comparison

According to the above literature, the research content and the primary trend is to introduce it into various industries, enterprises, and regions as an environmental management tool, while emphasizing the synergistic development of economic and environmental benefits, so that the theoretical system of eco-efficiency has been sublimated [31-32]. Both at home and abroad, people generally believe that improving tourism eco-efficiency is a vital guarantee to promote the sustainable tourism development, and have begun to focus on the governance of tourism ecosystems and the contradictions between tourism economic systems, social systems, and ecosystems. Due to the broad and multiple sectors involved in tourism, the difficulty of counting and quantifying data on tourism products, as well as the consumption of tourism resources and their impact on the environment, the existing studies on tourism eco-efficiency at home and abroad are relatively weak compared to other industries [33-34]. The majority of foreign studies are more microscopic, taking the form of qualitative and quantitative studies on a particular tourism enterprise or sector, and are more instructive for the development of individual cases. Domestic research is still relatively simple in terms of index system construction and measurement methods. The investigation of its spatial and temporal dimensions is primarily based on overall spatial and temporal characteristics, lacking a more refined spatial and temporal representation of the region [35-36]. Currently, most measures of regional economic resilience at home and abroad are based on core variables and indicator systems, mainly by selecting indicators such as employment, GDP, and trade volume, or by constructing indicator systems to create a comprehensive measurement of economic resilience. However, the regional financial system is complex and variable, and the size using the core variable method is too macro and single to reflect the different dimensions of the concept of resilience. Its explanatory power is far from sufficient [37-38]. In terms of measurement, most domestic scholars use the core variable approach and the composite indicator system approach to measure economic resilience. In terms of the study area, it is limited to resource-based cities, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and the old industrial base areas in the northeast. The study scale is also relatively homogeneous, mainly at the provincial level or county level of a province or city cluster level [39]. Most of the existing studies measure tourism development in terms of a single dimension of efficiency or resilience. However, attention to the coupled and coordinated relationship between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience is lacking. Resilience and efficiency are key elements of tourism development, and promoting synergy between them is an important goal to achieve sustainable tourism development [40].

In response to the deficiencies of existing studies in the analysis of the spatial characteristics of tourism eco-efficiency, spatial agglomeration analysis, and its evolutionary process are studied in combination with exploratory spatial data analysis for tourism eco-efficiency in each province [33]. The main contributions are as follows: First, from the perspective of economic resilience, which can evaluate the resistance, recovery, adaptation, and transformation capacity of regions in the face of external shocks, we measure the economic resilience of each province in China and analyze its spatial and temporal evolution process in depth. Second, the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience are explored to provide practical references for further enhancing the coupling and achieving development goals in China's land provinces. Third, in terms of research methodology, the super-SBM model with undesirable output is used to measure the eco-efficiency of tourism. The entropy-weighted Topsis model was used to measure the economic resilience value. The coupling coordination degree of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience was measured using the coupling coordination degree model. Fourth, the ESDA method was chosen to investigate and analyze the spatial and temporal dynamics of the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience [41].

Reviewer 2 Report

The spatiotemporal relationship between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience from coupling perspectives in China

In the abstract, the authors present the work and some conclusions, but they should start by defining the objectives of the work. These objectives are repeated in the text in order to maintain "a continuous train of thought" always keeping the reader connected to the text. The text is well structured and well written.

Other aspects to improve are:

- the bibliography is very current, but it should be better formatted throughout the text, and at the end it should be placed with a DOI;

- Limitations and future research usually come after completion and not before.

Best regards,

They should reread the paper and check if there is any aspect that needs to be corrected.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1:the bibliography is very current, but it should be better formatted throughout the text, and at the end it should be placed with a DOI.

Response 1:

For each literature, the doi was added if it could be found, and some literature was not added if it could not be found.

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Point 2:Limitations and future research usually come after completion and not before.

Response 2:

The order has been adjusted according to the teacher's opinion and put into the last part of the article.

6.2. Limitations and future research

This study delves deeply into the coupling coordination of the two systems of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience, which implications for future research on tourism eco-efficiency, economic resilience, and sustainable development in various regions of the country. However, there are still some shortcomings in this study that need to be addressed:

(1) Because theoretical and empirical studies in related fields are still in their early stages, the accounting coefficients of tourism carbon emissions have not been able to be further adjusted for each province, resulting in slightly conservative tourism eco-efficiency measurement results.

(2) Considering the availability of research data, this paper analyzes tourism eco-efficiency, economic resilience, and their coupling coordination degree by provinces and districts nationwide, which can, to some extent, reflect the actual development of the two systems of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience of provinces and districts, and the research perspective can be further expanded down to the relatively microscopic scale analysis of areas and city clusters in the future.

(3) This study has not yet considered the impact of Covid19 on tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience. Covid19 has brought huge shocks and challenges to the global tourism industry, and the impact on tourism is characterized by high stress and long duration. Follow-up studies can explore the impact of Covid19 on tourism and the subsequent recovery.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This topic is extremely interesting, especially the problem posed in this way.

Researches from this market are very valuable to us, as China is a country of large numbers what we can see in this paper too.

By researching 31 provinces in China from 2010-2019, the authors set a good basis for comparing the phenomena they study.

Research Methods and Data Sources used in the work are clearly marked and proven.

The delineation of tourism eco - efficiency values in certain provinces and indicating their level is a very important part of the research.

Lines 25-27

Other obstacles for the development of tourism should also be included.

Line 39

The 20th Party Congress report / this source should be placed in the literature.

Line 263

In this sentence, the expression 'for the three years' is used. It should be changed in "in the observed three years" or "studied three years".

In Figure 5, it is not written what the orange color represents

In Figure 6, increase the colors of the letters because the values are barely visible

Line 362

"smoke-free industry” - This statement needs to be explained because it does not correspond to the text as it is stated.

Line 403

The question of the issue between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience is well raised

A well-laid foundation for Limitations and future research. In addition, the impact of Covid 19 should be reviewed in future work.

Expand the conclusion.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Point 1:Lines 25-27，Other obstacles for the development of tourism should also be included.

Response 1:

Additional descriptions of other barriers are provided here.

However, in the process of rapid development of tourism, there are obstacles such as fragile ecological environment, weak infrastructure, unreasonable industrial structure, uneven regional development, and insufficient capital investment.

Point 2:Line 39，The 20th Party Congress report / this source should be placed in the literature.

Response 2:

Additional references are provided here.

Xi, J.P. (2022). Raising the Great Banner of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics to Unite the Struggle for the Comprehensive Construction of a Modern Socialist Country: Report at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. People's Publishing House.

Point 3:Line 263，In this sentence, the expression 'for the three years' is used. It should be changed in "in the observed three years" or "studied three years".

Response 3:

This was amended by replacing it with "in the observed three years".

Point 4:In Figure 5, it is not written what the orange color represents

Response 4:

The orange line in Figure 5, represents the coupling coordination degree of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience in 2019.

Point 5:In Figure 6, increase the colors of the letters because the values are barely visible

Response 5:

Bold and blacken the font in the image.

Point 6:Line 362，"smoke-free industry” - This statement needs to be explained because it does not correspond to the text as it is stated.

Response 6:

Adjust the expression and re-express it.

Tourism is a strategic pillar industry of the national economy and an important driving force of global economic development. With the acceleration of economic globalization, greenhouse gas emissions and energy pollution generated by tourism are increasing day by day.

Point 7:A well-laid foundation for Limitations and future research. In addition, the impact of Covid 19 should be reviewed in future work.

Response 7:

Adding Covid19-related limitations.

Point 8:Expand the conclusion.

Response 8:

(1) The national tourism eco-efficiency level in 2010-2019 is low, and although there are individual provinces and regions that are greater than the average, there are still more provinces and regions that are below the average. There are phenomena that go against sustainable development in the process of tourism development in all provinces and regions, such as waste of resources, inefficiency, and environmental pollution. There is still much room for development and improvement in tourism eco-efficiency. The differences between provinces and regions are relatively large, and there is an imbalance in the distribution. And the tourism eco-efficiency value shows a pattern of "high in the southeast-low in the northwest".

(2) The economic resilience values of 31 provinces nationwide from 2010 to 2019 are relatively low, but the economic resilience of each province is relatively stable, and the pattern of regional distribution of resilience values is generally consistent. The economic resilience values reveal a fluctuating rising tendency over time, although the size of the fluctuation is quite moderate. In terms of spatial distribution, economic resilience shows a decreasing pattern in the east, middle, and west. This is mainly attributed to factors such as the economic level and regional development of each region. Given the relatively low level of economic resilience in general, each province should make significant efforts to improve the comprehensive economic strength of the province in all aspects.

(3) From 2010 to 2019, the overall level of coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience in the 31 provinces nationwide was relatively low, dominated by low coordination type, with largely consistent spatial and temporal patterns. The coupling coordination degree between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience in 31 provinces nationwide shows a fluctuating upward trend, but the increase is relatively small. The spatiotemporal patterns of the coupling coordination types of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience are consistent. The high and low values of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience coupling coordination show a certain degree of clustering in the spatial distribution.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Title: The spatiotemporal relationship between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience from coupling perspectives in China

Comments:

1. In the introduction, it is stated that the research background of this paper is not successful. The current version is too abstract. In the introductory section, the authors are encouraged to explore more comprehensively and deeply the spatiotemporal relationship between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience from coupling perspectives in China. This discussion should be seamlessly integrated with the juxtaposition of cutting-edge research and analysis from authoritative sources, thus facilitating the derivation of research objectives. The manuscript should also clarify how its findings add to the existing body of knowledge.

2. The contributions of this paper should be compared with previous cutting-edge and authoritative literature so as to be reflected.

3. The structure of this manuscript is missing.

4. I suggest that authors add the literature review. Within the realm of the literature review, the author is advised to incorporate references to leading-edge, authoritative sources. Subsequently, a debatable analysis should be conducted, enabling the formation of this paper's conclusions and elucidating its distinctiveness from the prevailing literature.

5. For the results of this article, the authors simply describe the statistical and analytical results. I suggest that the authors give more economic meaning to these results. And explain the reasons behind these results. What are the similarities and differences between these results and the existing literature?

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

Point 1:In the introduction, it is stated that the research background of this paper is not successful. The current version is too abstract. In the introductory section, the authors are encouraged to explore more comprehensively and deeply the spatiotemporal relationship between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience from coupling perspectives in China. This discussion should be seamlessly integrated with the juxtaposition of cutting-edge research and analysis from authoritative sources, thus facilitating the derivation of research objectives. The manuscript should also clarify how its findings add to the existing body of knowledge.

Response 1:

Revision of the introduction.

Introduction

Point 2:The contributions of this paper should be compared with previous cutting-edge and authoritative literature so as to be reflected.

Response 2:

Revision of the contributions.

2.3. Literature Comparison

Point 3:I suggest that authors add the literature review. Within the realm of the literature review, the author is advised to incorporate references to leading-edge, authoritative sources. Subsequently, a debatable analysis should be conducted, enabling the formation of this paper's conclusions and elucidating its distinctiveness from the prevailing literature.

Response 3:

Revision of the literature review.

Literature Review

2.1. Tourism Eco-efficiency

2.2. Economic Resilience

2.3. Literature Comparison

Point 4:For the results of this article, the authors simply describe the statistical and analytical results. I suggest that the authors give more economic meaning to these results. And explain the reasons behind these results. What are the similarities and differences between these results and the existing literature?

Response 4:

Revision of the results.

Results

4.1. Tourism eco-efficiency measures and their spatiotemporal distributions

Due to the rapid growth of total tourism revenue and the total number of visitors in the eastern region, it has driven the development of the regional economy [17]. In addition, the southeast region actively implements environmental protection, energy conservation, emission reduction, and other related policies to promote the green and low-carbon development of tourism, which has begun to bear fruit [18-19]. The main reason for the low efficiency in the northwest region is that although tourism is in a stage of high growth, the economic growth rate has started to slow down. Coupled with insufficient technological innovation and excessive investment in tourism fixed assets, the cumulative effect of tourism development on the environment has been increasing [20-21].

4.2. Economic resilience measures and their spatiotemporal distributions

Influenced by economic development, infrastructure, and other factors, there is a clear heterogeneity in the evolution pattern of economic resilience due to the existence of regional differences [23-24]. The stronger the economic resilience of a region, the stronger its ability to withstand external shocks, and stronger economic resilience will also be influenced by various aspects such as industrial layout, innovation capacity, and foundation and, in this way, have a favorable impact on the regional economy [25]. Economic resilience is an important guarantee for smooth and high-quality economic development. Given the overall low level of economic resilience, provinces should make great efforts to improve their comprehensive economic strength in all aspects [26].

4.3. Coupling coordination analysis of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience

4.3.1. Spatiotemporal distributions of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience coupling coordination

In general, the interaction between tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience of tourism cities has increased significantly, and the phenomenon of regional divergence has improved, but the trend of "low in the west and high in the east" has not yet been broken [40-41]. The coupling level in the eastern region is relatively better than that in the western region, showing obvious regional differences, which are related to the long-established differences in economic development levels between the east and the west [43]. Which bring about differences in regional development and infrastructure construction, thus making tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience show obvious regional characteristics in the process of mutual drive and interaction [44].

4.3.2. Spatial correlation distributions of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience coupling coordination

Most of the provinces in China are at a low level of agglomeration and stability due to the coupled coordination level of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience, while some provinces in coastal areas are at a high level of agglomeration due to the rapid economic development, high level of infrastructure improvement, and consequent improvement of tourism industry development [30,34]. The inland provinces are rich in tourism resources, tourism attraction has its own characteristics, and tourism industry development potential is huge [47]. They should focus on the effective use of tourism resources and high-quality coordinated economic development through improving their own attraction to achieve the siphon effect in order to achieve benign development and mutual promotion of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience [12].

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Round 2:

1. “Tourism is a strategic pillar industry in China. The development of tourism can meet the growing material and cultural needs of the people [1-2].” How did the authors derive this conclusion about China based on a Switzerland sample?

2. “In the new economic normal, a one-sided focus on the resilience of the tourism industry will to some extent produce industrial redundancy and lag in development [10-11].” How did the authors derive this conclusion about China based on a US and UK sample?

3. “The 20th Party Congress report proposed that "building an ecological civilization is a thousand-year plan for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation," emphasizing the importance of environmental protection in Chinese economic development [14-15].” Can this paragraph be supported by the literature? “Bergeijk, V., Brakman, S., & Marrewijk, C.V. (2017). Heterogeneous economic resilience and the great recession's world trade 544 collapse. Papers in Regional Science. 96 (1):4-12.”

In summary, in the introductory section, it is observed that the authors made subjective references to existing literature without engaging in a rigorous scientific investigation. The current rendition remains inadequate in addressing this concern. Furthermore, the authors have not effectively presented their findings or highlighted the innovative aspects of their study, thus diminishing the overall impact of the paper. A comprehensive and compelling account is necessary to captivate readers and establish the originality of the research.

4. Within the literature review section, the authors compiled a list of pertinent literature; however, they fell short of conducting a comprehensive polemic analysis. This omission detracts from the scholarly depth of their work. To enhance the impact of their study, it is imperative that the authors engage in a rigorous and critical analysis of the existing literature, fostering a vibrant intellectual discourse and contributing novel perspectives to the field.

5. “According to the above literature, the research content and the primary trend is to introduce it into various industries, enterprises, and regions as an environmental management tool, while emphasizing the synergistic development of economic and environmental benefits, so that the theoretical system of eco-efficiency has been sublimated [31-32]. Both at home and abroad, people generally believe that improving tourism eco-efficiency is a vital guarantee to promote the sustainable tourism development, and have begun to focus on the governance of tourism ecosystems and the contradictions between tourism economic systems, social systems, and ecosystems. Due to the broad and multiple sectors involved in tourism, the difficulty of counting and quantifying data on tourism products, as well as the consumption of tourism resources and their impact on the environment, the existing studies on tourism eco-efficiency at home and abroad are relatively weak compared to other industries [33-34]. The majority of foreign studies are more microscopic, taking the form of qualitative and quantitative studies on a particular tourism enterprise or sector, and are more instructive for the development of individual cases. Domestic research is still relatively simple in terms of index system construction and measurement methods. The investigation of its spatial and temporal dimensions is primarily based on overall spatial and temporal characteristics, lacking a more refined spatial and temporal representation of the region [35-36]. ” According to the given description, it appears that the authors did not undertake a thorough analysis of foreign countries. This raises the question of how the authors arrived at their conclusions regarding these nations.

6. “Currently, most measures of regional economic resilience at home and abroad are based on core variables and indicator systems, mainly by selecting indicators such as employment, GDP, and trade volume, or by constructing indicator systems to create a comprehensive measurement of economic resilience. ” This statement needs to be supported by literature.

7. Upon an extensive examination of the relevant literature, it becomes evident that the author's contribution to the existing knowledge system has been thoroughly explored by numerous scholars. Consequently, it is expected that the author will make a more innovative and distinctive contribution to the field. To captivate the attention of readers and enhance the overall impact of the research, it is imperative for the author to introduce novel insights, methodologies, or perspectives that go beyond what has already been extensively studied, thereby enriching the current knowledge base and advancing scholarly discourse in the subject area：Tan, J., Zhang, P., Lo, K., Li, J., & Liu, S. (2017). Conceptualizing and measuring economic resilience of resource-based cities: Case study of Northeast China. Chinese Geographical Science, 27, 471-481.

Mayor, M., & Ramos, R. (2020). Regions and economic resilience: New perspectives. Sustainability, 12(11), 4693.

Song, G., Zhong, S., & Song, L. (2022). Spatial pattern evolution characteristics and influencing factors in county economic resilience in China. Sustainability, 14(14), 8703.

Hao, Z., Ye, D., Hui, W., Zenglin, H., & Hongye, W. (2022). An empirical analysis of tourism eco-efficiency in ecological protection priority areas based on the DPSIR-SBM model: A case study of the Yellow River Basin, China. Ecological Informatics, 70, 101720.

Sun, Y., & Hou, G. (2021). Analysis on the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics and spatial network structure of tourism eco-efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(5), 2577.

Wang, C., Xu, L., Huang, M., Su, X., Lai, R., & Xu, A. (2022). Research on the evolution of spatial network structure of tourism eco-efficiency and its influencing factors in China’s provinces based on carbon emission accounting. Plos one, 17(9), e0272667.

Zhang, F., Yang, X., Wu, J., Ma, D., Xiao, Y., Gong, G., & Zhang, J. (2022). How new urbanization affects tourism eco-efficiency in China: An analysis considering the undesired outputs. Sustainability, 14(17), 10820.

An, C., Muhtar, P., & Xiao, Z. (2022). Spatiotemporal Evolution of Tourism Eco-Efficiency in Major Tourist Cities in China. Sustainability, 14(20), 13158.

Guo, L., Li, P., Zhang, J., Xiao, X., & Peng, H. (2022). Do socio-economic factors matter? A comprehensive evaluation of tourism eco-efficiency determinants in China based on the Geographical Detector Model. Journal of Environmental Management, 320, 115812.

Xu, A., Wang, C., Tang, D., & Ye, W. (2022). Tourism circular economy: Identification and measurement of tourism industry ecologization. Ecological Indicators, 144, 109476.

Wang, Z., Liu, Q., Xu, J., & Fujiki, Y. (2020). Evolution characteristics of the spatial network structure of tourism efficiency in China: A province-level analysis. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 18, 100509.

8. “##For the results of this article, the authors simply describe the statistical and analytical results. I suggest that the authors give more economic meaning to these results. And explain the reasons behind these results. What are the similarities and differences between these results and the existing literature?” The authors are to be acknowledged for their meticulous integration of relevant literature into their study. However, a fundamental query arises regarding the rationale behind incorporating foreign literature: can the circumstances in foreign countries be presumed to mirror those in China? Furthermore, a crucial aspect that remains unaddressed is the absence of an explanation regarding the underlying reasons behind the obtained results and their associated implications.

9. The policy implications of this paper are missing, and the corresponding future research directions need to be clearly indicated.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

First of all, I especially thank the reviewer for so many useful comments, which are very beneficial. On the basis of the reviewers' comments, modifications were made and this study was improved. Through the reviewers' serious and rigorous revisions, I know that I still need to improve the literature writing, data result analysis, and conclusion discussion parts. The following are some of the changes made according to the reviewers' comments, and I hope they will be approved by the teacher. I will also always keep in mind the reviewers' teachings in the process of writing future papers. In each chapter, I should be rigorous and serious and not cope with the perfunctory. In future academic research, continue to do responsible and valuable research.

Point 1:“Tourism is a strategic pillar industry in China. The development of tourism can meet the growing material and cultural needs of the people [1-2].” How did the authors derive this conclusion about China based on a Switzerland sample?

Response 1:

This was revised according to the reviewers' comments. Chinese conclusions should be drawn based on a Chinese sample, and the references are replaced here.

Sheng, Y.C., & Wu X.Y. (2021). An Empirical Study on the Evolution and Effectiveness of China's Tourism lndustry Policy. Tourism research. 13 (2):1-16.

Point 2:“In the new economic normal, a one-sided focus on the resilience of the tourism industry will to some extent produce industrial redundancy and lag in development [10-11].” How did the authors derive this conclusion about China based on a US and UK sample?

Response 2:

This was revised according to the reviewers' comments. Chinese conclusions should be drawn based on a Chinese sample, and the references are replaced here.

Li, B.J., & Song, Y.F. (2023). Rural "micro tourism" industry resilience enhancement path. Social scientist. 311 (3):57-63.

Ma, X.F., & Tang, J.X. (2023). The impact of transportation accessibility on the resilience of tourism environment system and its spatial spillover effect in western Hunan.Geographical science. 43 (2):291-300. DOI: 10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2023.02.011

Point 3:“The 20th Party Congress report proposed that "building an ecological civilization is a thousand-year plan for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation," emphasizing the importance of environmental protection in Chinese economic development [14-15].” Can this paragraph be supported by the literature? “Bergeijk, V., Brakman, S., & Marrewijk, C.V. (2017). Heterogeneous economic resilience and the great recession's world trade 544 collapse. Papers in Regional Science. 96 (1):4-12.”

Response 3:

This was revised according to the reviewers' comments. Chinese conclusions should be drawn based on a Chinese sample, and the references are replaced here. Identify the literature that supports this statement to be rigorous.

Chen, X.S. (2021). Research on economic management of green finance under the background of ecological civilization. Environmental engineering. 39 (10):258-259.

Point 4: Within the literature review section, the authors compiled a list of pertinent literature; however, they fell short of conducting a comprehensive polemic analysis. This omission detracts from the scholarly depth of their work. To enhance the impact of their study, it is imperative that the authors engage in a rigorous and critical analysis of the existing literature, fostering a vibrant intellectual discourse and contributing novel perspectives to the field.

Response 4:

Revise this according to the reviewers' comments. Highlight the innovative points of this study by critically analyzing the existing literature.

Schaltegger first proposed the concept of eco-efficiency in 1990 [16]. Gössling et al. proposed the concept of tourism eco-efficiency in 2005 [17]. Based on sustainability theory, Sariannidis et al. use accounting as a mediating element to link environmental practices to business performance [18]. Cole et al. and others used an ecological footprint approach to measure the impact of tourism and its development on sustainable development to assess the eco-efficiency of tourism in regions such as the Himalayas [19]. Wang et al. investigated the spatial pattern of tourism eco-efficiency and its relationship to environmental regulations [20]. Liu et al. measured tourism eco-efficiency using a single ratio method and conducted a comparative study of differences between provinces [21]. However, many scholars prefer the application of model method multi-indicator measurement, such as DEA and other methods. Li et al. used the DEA to analyze the spatial pattern and influencing factors of the Wuling Mountain area's tourism eco-efficiency [22]. Tourism eco-efficiency aims to create more tourism products and services while reducing resource consumption and pollutant emissions, and it has become an important evaluation indicator for sustainable tourism growth. The direction that tourism eco-efficiency focuses on is the integration of tourism, ecology, and efficiency, which not only considers the degree of resource and energy consumption and environmental pollution but also measures the importance of tourism economic output, which coincides with the essence of sustainable tourism development. Tourism eco-efficiency has a significant impact on the quality of tourism growth, green transformation, and eco-economic management systems and, to a certain extent, changes the basis, driving force, and key to tourism development. In recent years, as the construction of ecological civilization in China continues to deepen, low-carbon tourism, green tourism, and other tourism formats have emerged one after another, which has promoted the process of tourism eco-efficiency research. Tourism eco-efficiency not only provides decision support for the sustainable development of tourism but also promotes the transformation of tourism development modes and forms a new pattern of modern tourism with harmonious human and natural development. Tourism eco-efficiency is an important support for the implementation of ecological civilization strategy and the construction of a beautiful China and ecological civilization society, and the research on tourism eco-efficiency has important strategic value and theoretical and practical significance for tourism development and tourism research.

In response to the deficiencies of existing studies in the analysis of the spatial characteristics of tourism eco-efficiency, spatial agglomeration analysis, and its evolutionary process are studied in combination with exploratory spatial data analysis for tourism eco-efficiency in each province. The main contributions are as follows: First, from the perspective of economic resilience, which can evaluate the resistance, recovery, adaptation, and transformation capacity of regions in the face of external shocks, we measure the economic resilience of each province in China and analyze its spatial and temporal evolution process in depth. Second, the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience are explored to provide practical references for further enhancing the coupling and achieving development goals in China's land provinces. Third, in terms of research methodology, the super-SBM model with undesirable output is used to measure the eco-efficiency of tourism. The entropy-weighted Topsis model was used to measure the economic resilience value. The coupling coordination degree of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience was measured using the coupling coordination degree model. Fourth, the ESDA method was chosen to investigate and analyze the spatial and temporal dynamics of the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience [41].

Point 5: “According to the above literature, the research content and the primary trend is to introduce it into various industries, enterprises, and regions as an environmental management tool, while emphasizing the synergistic development of economic and environmental benefits, so that the theoretical system of eco-efficiency has been sublimated [31-32]. Both at home and abroad, people generally believe that improving tourism eco-efficiency is a vital guarantee to promote the sustainable tourism development, and have begun to focus on the governance of tourism ecosystems and the contradictions between tourism economic systems, social systems, and ecosystems. Due to the broad and multiple sectors involved in tourism, the difficulty of counting and quantifying data on tourism products, as well as the consumption of tourism resources and their impact on the environment, the existing studies on tourism eco-efficiency at home and abroad are relatively weak compared to other industries [33-34]. The majority of foreign studies are more microscopic, taking the form of qualitative and quantitative studies on a particular tourism enterprise or sector, and are more instructive for the development of individual cases. Domestic research is still relatively simple in terms of index system construction and measurement methods. The investigation of its spatial and temporal dimensions is primarily based on overall spatial and temporal characteristics, lacking a more refined spatial and temporal representation of the region [35-36]. ” According to the given description, it appears that the authors did not undertake a thorough analysis of foreign countries. This raises the question of how the authors arrived at their conclusions regarding these nations.

Response 5:

According to the reviewers' comments, the literature was supplemented and improved in parts 2.1 and 2.2. For some foreign contents, on the one hand, the foreign literature is analyzed directly, and on the other hand, the inductive analysis is based on other Chinese literature for the references to foreign literature. In short, the conclusions of relevant foreign studies are obtained from two aspects.

2.1. Tourism Eco-efficiency

2.2. Economic Resilience

Point 6: “Currently, most measures of regional economic resilience at home and abroad are based on core variables and indicator systems, mainly by selecting indicators such as employment, GDP, and trade volume, or by constructing indicator systems to create a comprehensive measurement of economic resilience. ” This statement needs to be supported by literature.

Response 6:

Correct this to provide a reference based on the reviewer's comments. So that the claims made here are supported by the literature.

Currently, most measures of regional economic resilience in China is based on core variables and indicator systems, mainly by selecting indicators such as employment, GDP, and trade volume, or by constructing indicator systems to create a comprehensive measurement of economic resilience [37].

Gao, L.T., Meng, F., & Tian, Q.B. (2022). A study on the spatio-temporal evolution of China's economic resilience and the factors influencing it--based on digital finance perspective. Exploration of Economic Issues. (8):57-74.

Point 7: Upon an extensive examination of the relevant literature, it becomes evident that the author's contribution to the existing knowledge system has been thoroughly explored by numerous scholars. Consequently, it is expected that the author will make a more innovative and distinctive contribution to the field. To captivate the attention of readers and enhance the overall impact of the research, it is imperative for the author to introduce novel insights, methodologies, or perspectives that go beyond what has already been extensively studied, thereby enriching the current knowledge base and advancing scholarly discourse in the subject area：Tan, J., Zhang, P., Lo, K.,

Response 7:

Although there are existing studies that explore economic resilience or tourism eco-efficiency, there is no study that explores the coupling of the two system. This study explores the coupling of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience, measures the coordination of the coupling, and analyzes its spatial and temporal dynamic patterns using ESDA method.

The main contributions are as follows: First, from the perspective of economic resilience, which can evaluate the resistance, recovery, adaptation, and transformation capacity of regions in the face of external shocks, we measure the economic resilience of each province in China and analyze its spatial and temporal evolution process in depth. Second, the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience are explored to provide practical references for further enhancing the coupling and achieving development goals in China's land provinces. Third, in terms of research methodology, the super-SBM model with undesirable output is used to measure the eco-efficiency of tourism. The entropy-weighted Topsis model was used to measure the economic resilience value. The coupling coordination degree of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience was measured using the coupling coordination degree model. Fourth, the ESDA method was chosen to investigate and analyze the spatial and temporal dynamics of the coupling coordination of tourism eco-efficiency and economic resilience [41].

Point 8: “For the results of this article, the authors simply describe the statistical and analytical results. I suggest that the authors give more economic meaning to these results. And explain the reasons behind these results.” The authors are to be acknowledged for their meticulous integration of relevant literature into their study. However, a fundamental query arises regarding the rationale behind incorporating foreign literature: can the circumstances in foreign countries be presumed to mirror those in China? Furthermore, a crucial aspect that remains unaddressed is the absence of an explanation regarding the underlying reasons behind the obtained results and their associated implications.

Response 8:

This was revised and improved based on the reviewers' comments, adding economic significance and explaining the reasons behind the results.

Due to the rapid growth of total tourism revenue and the total number of visitors in the eastern region, it has driven the development of the regional economy. In addition, the southeast region actively implements environmental protection, energy conservation, emission reduction, and other related policies to promote the green and low-carbon development of tourism, which has begun to bear fruit [20]. The main reason for the low efficiency in the northwest region is that although tourism is in a stage of high growth, the economic growth rate has started to slow down. Coupled with insufficient technological innovation and excessive investment in tourism fixed assets, the cumulative effect of tourism development on the environment has been increasing [21-22].

Influenced by economic development, infrastructure, and other factors, there is a clear heterogeneity in the evolution pattern of economic resilience due to the existence of regional differences [24]. The stronger the economic resilience of a region, the stronger its ability to withstand external shocks, and stronger economic resilience will also be influenced by various aspects such as industrial layout, innovation capacity, and foundation and, in this way, have a favorable impact on the regional economy [25]. Economic resilience is an important guarantee for smooth and high-quality economic development. Given the overall low level of economic resilience, provinces should make great efforts to improve their comprehensive economic strength in all aspects [26].

Since the foreign language situation cannot be assumed to reflect the Chinese situation, the borrowed English paper has been changed to a Chinese paper.

Point 9: The policy implications of this paper are missing, and the corresponding future research directions need to be clearly indicated.

Response 9:

This was revised based on the reviewers' comments.

(4) The policy implications of this paper are missing, and future research should be targeted to point out countermeasure suggestions based on the analysis of the results. Countermeasure suggestions can be given to local governments, industries and enterprises with a view to promoting sustainable development of tourism.

Thank you again for your review, and I will always keep in mind the requirements of my reviewer in the process of writing future papers to avoid making the same type of mistakes. I wish you good health and success in your career!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

I do not have additional comments.

Good luck!

Moderate editing of English language required

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