An investigation of technological innovation and tourism industrial structure upgrading as drivers of tourism economic growth

This study focuses on the drivers of tourism economic growth with technological innovation and tourism industrial structure upgrading as the key predictors. An empirical study was done with panel data of 71 countries for 1996–2016. Three-stage least squares (3SLS) regression with cross-sectional fixed effects was applied to estimate the parameters. The results suggest that both predictors are the driving force for tourism economic growth. Moreover, the results reveal that technological innovation has significant negative effects on tourism industrial structure upgrading. This suggests that if technological development is not firmly anchored in the regional economic development, any one-sided pursuit of technological innovation can produce a “decoupling” effect, which constrains the upgrading of tourism industrial structure. The study has important practical implications for policy formulation to sustain long-term development of the tourism economy.