高铁开通与站点城市旅游业发展:“引擎”还是“过道”?

High-speed Rail Operation and Tourism in the HSR Site City: “Engine” or “Corridor”?

完善的交通基础设施网络是满足人民日益增长的旅游生活需求之重要前提。我国高铁快速发展,高铁开通是成为推动区域旅游发展的“引擎”,还是仅起到交通“过道”的作用,这需要通过有效的方法予以甄别。本文基于2003—2016年中国286个城市的面板数据,使用渐进型双重差分法评估了高铁开通对站点城市旅游业发展的影响。研究发现:控制年份、城市和剔除其他因素影响后,整体上,高铁开通对站点城市国内游客人数和游客总人数的增长具有正向的影响但并不显著,甚至有较弱的证据显示高铁开通平均降低站点城市大约5%的国内旅游收入和总收入,这一结果提示,对大多数站点城市而言,高铁仅作为城市的“过道”,没能成为拉动旅游业发展的“引擎”。对不同城市的异质性分析表明,高铁的旅游效应仅在五线城市表现显著,高铁开通可平均增加五线城市14 82%的国内游客人数。机制分析显示,高铁开通对影响旅游业发展的城市规模效应、结构效应和技术效应都并非是简单的正向传导路径,而是表现为正、负向影响并存的传导模式,从而导致了高铁开通的旅游效应不显著。

A sound transportation infrastructure network is an important prerequisite to meet people's increasing demand for a better tourism life.With the increasing popularity of high-speed rail(HSR),the impact of HSR on the development of tourism has attracted great attention from scholars worldwide.HSR has a strong spatial impact on its site cities and the impact mechanism is often complex.Therefore,it needs to be identified through effective methods that whether high-speed rail(HSR)can serve as an engine for regional tourism or merely as a transport corridor.Based on a panel data of 286 cities in China from 2003 to 2016,this paper evaluates the causal impact of HSR on tourism growth of site cities by using the gradual difference-in-differences(DID)model,taking into account the differences in times of HSR opening among cities.The empirical results show that,on average,HSR has a positive but not statistically significant impact on the growth of the number of domestic tourists and the number of total tourists in the HSR site cities in the condition of controlling year and city effects and other factors.There is even weak evidence that HSR decreases averagely about 5%of the domestic tourism income and total tourism income of site cities.This result suggests that for most site cities,HSR merely serves as a“corridor”rather than an“engine”that boosts tourism growth.In terms of heterogeneity,the tourism effect of HSR is only significant in China's fifth-tier cities.HSR can increase the number of domestic tourists in the fifth-tier cities by 14.82%on average.Mechanism analysis shows that HSR has a mixed effect,both positive and negative,on the scale effect,structure effect and technical effect of cities,having influence on tourism,which leads to an insignificant HSR tourism effect.The reasons are as follow.First,the tourism agglomeration effect of HSR is greater than its diffusion effect,which will lead to more production factors flow to the central cities and be harm to the development of tourism in small and medium-sized cities.Second,HSR will substitute some of the civil aviation in passenger transport.Some medium-distance civil aviation routes will shrink or even cancel under the impact of high-speed rail.Thirdly,scenic spots between similar cities lack features.The diversity of tourism products is insufficient,and the tourism homogenization competitions among cites are severe.Finally,the administrative barriers hinder the tourism cooperation.The tourism sector lacks spatial layout and overall planning for tourism from a national scale.The conclusions of this paper have clear policy implications.First,we must strengthen tourism cooperation between cities and vigorously promote the development of“global tourism”.The high-speed rail has created favorable conditions for interconnection and inter-regional cooperation,and put forward higher requirements for cooperation between local governments.Therefore,the local government should establish the overall situation of regional integration development,actively promote the reform of the system and mechanism,rely on the construction of“urbanization”of tourism along the high-speed rail region,avoid the homogenization competition of tourism products,and jointly promote the development of“global tourism”.Second,it is necessary to strengthen the structural reform of the tourism supply side and develop new tourism products and services.The tourism sector should create tourism products according to local conditions and increase the supply of special tourism products and services to meet the people's growing needs for better tourism.The third is to improve the tourism infrastructure network and improve the accessibility of tourist attractions.Because most of the high-speed rail stations are located in the suburbs,and some natural scenic spots are also far from the core areas of the city.Therefore,urban road planning and public transport systems need to take into account the connectivity between key scenic spots and high-speed rail stations to improve the accessibility of tourist attractions.At last,it is necessary to increase the integration and development of ICT and tourism,and expand the multiplier effect of high-speed rail in the economy and society through a comprehensive tourism information network.