IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa16p600.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inbound tourism as a driving force of the regional innovation system: An impact study on China

Author

Listed:
  • Jingjing Liu
  • Peter Nijkamp

Abstract

Along with the globalization and information-economic epoch, international knowledge spillover plays an important role in regional development, and the regional innovation system becomes more and more open-ended. As a nexus of the destination and the outside world, inbound tourism brings various economic and social resources for the development of the host region, which may also contribute to a higher level of cognitive proximity and absorptive capability as well as to greater product variety and manifold consumption externalities. Much research has addressed the influence of innovation on the tourism industry development, but only a few studies have focused on the impact of tourism on innovation. This study focusses on the influence of inbound tourism on a regional innovation system. The aims of this research are to: (1) interpret the mechanism of how inbound tourism impacts regional innovation; (2) inquire the external influence factors of the performance of inbound tourism; (3) explore the different characteristics of these effects when considering different types of innovation; (4) revisit the Tourism-Led Growth (TLG) hypothesis, and consider whether innovation can be a new vehicle to explain the influence of inbound tourism on spatial economic development. The influence of inbound tourism on innovation will provide a new perspective for analyzing the long term impact of tourism development. Furthermore, it may also be a meaningful complement to studies on the relationship between immigration, culture diversity and innovation, especially in the context of developing regions. Our study is organized as follows. First, the theoretical framework and the related hypotheses on the interaction between inbound tourism and regional innovation are presented. The network structure and diverse demands approaches as well as the effect of the regional absorptive capacity are considered and highlighted. Next, data from 30 Chinese Mainland provinces (Tibet being excluded, because part of the important indicators are unavailable) for the years 2003-2012 are used for the empirical analysis. The data come from the Chinese Patent Statistical Yearbook, the Chinese Statistical Yearbook, and the China Economic & Industry Data Database. From a methodical perspective, an entropy method and a perpetual inventory method were undertaken to measure the key variables. Next, a descriptive analysis was used to reach a preliminary idea on the above relationship. As to the existence of spatial autocorrelation, spatial panel data analysis was conducted to test these hypotheses. The study finds that inbound tourism is a driving force for a regional innovation system in China and can bring a new life to regional economic development. Firstly, inbound tourism appears to have a direct and indirect impact on regional innovation, while absorptive capacity has a significant mediating effect in this relationship. Secondly, the impact of inbound tourism on regional innovation capacity tends to be stronger in the wealthier and more international-oriented provinces. Thirdly, the effect of inbound tourism on technological innovation is mostly weaker than that of social innovation. Fourthly, this study supports the TLG hypothesis with regional innovation as the mediating variable.

Suggested Citation

  • Jingjing Liu & Peter Nijkamp, 2016. "Inbound tourism as a driving force of the regional innovation system: An impact study on China," ERSA conference papers ersa16p600, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa16/Paper600_JingjingLiu.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malerba, Franco, 2002. "Sectoral systems of innovation and production," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 247-264, February.
    2. Manfred M. Fischer, 2001. "Innovation, knowledge creation and systems of innovation," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 35(2), pages 199-216.
    3. Canavan, Brendan, 2016. "Tourism culture: Nexus, characteristics, context and sustainability," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 229-243.
    4. Hjalager, Anne-Mette, 2010. "A review of innovation research in tourism," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-12.
    5. Elias Soukiazis & Sara Proença, 2008. "Tourism as an alternative source of regional growth in Portugal: a panel data analysis at NUTS II and III levels," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 7(1), pages 43-61, April.
    6. P Cooke & M G Uranga & G Etxebarria, 1998. "Regional Systems of Innovation: An Evolutionary Perspective," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 30(9), pages 1563-1584, September.
    7. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    8. Borensztein, E. & De Gregorio, J. & Lee, J-W., 1998. "How does foreign direct investment affect economic growth?1," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 115-135, June.
    9. Manuel Exposito-Langa & F. Xavier Molina-Morales & Josep Capo-Vicedo, 2011. "New Product Development and Absorptive Capacity in Industrial Districts: A Multidimensional Approach," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 319-331.
    10. Moon, Junyean & Chadee, Doren & Tikoo, Surinder, 2008. "Culture, product type, and price influences on consumer purchase intention to buy personalized products online," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 31-39, January.
    11. Jacint Balaguer & Manuel Cantavella-Jorda, 2002. "Tourism as a long-run economic growth factor: the Spanish case," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(7), pages 877-884.
    12. Clive Lawson & Edward Lorenz, 1999. "Collective Learning, Tacit Knowledge and Regional Innovative Capacity," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 305-317.
    13. Michael Fritsch & Viktor Slavtchev, 2010. "How does industry specialization affect the efficiency of regional innovation systems?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 87-108, August.
    14. Cooke, Philip & Gomez Uranga, Mikel & Etxebarria, Goio, 1997. "Regional innovation systems: Institutional and organisational dimensions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 475-491, December.
    15. Ceren Ozgen & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2012. "Immigration and innovation in European regions," Chapters, in: Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot & Mediha Sahin (ed.), Migration Impact Assessment, chapter 8, pages 261-298, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Ron Boschma & Simona Iammarino, 2009. "Related Variety, Trade Linkages, and Regional Growth in Italy," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(3), pages 289-311, July.
    17. Mowery, David & Rosenberg, Nathan, 1993. "The influence of market demand upon innovation: A critical review of some recent empirical studies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 107-108, April.
    18. Ejermo, Olof & Karlsson, Charlie, 2006. "Interregional inventor networks as studied by patent coinventorships," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 412-430, April.
    19. Mancusi, Maria Luisa, 2008. "International spillovers and absorptive capacity: A cross-country cross-sector analysis based on patents and citations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 155-165, December.
    20. Zhenhua Chen & Kingsley Haynes, 2015. "Multilevel assessment of public transportation infrastructure: a spatial econometric computable general equilibrium approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(3), pages 663-685, May.
    21. John M. Quigley, 1998. "Urban Diversity and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 127-138, Spring.
    22. Almeida-García, Fernando & Peláez-Fernández, María Ángeles & Balbuena-Vázquez, Antonia & Cortés-Macias, Rafael, 2016. "Residents' perceptions of tourism development in Benalmádena (Spain)," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 259-274.
    23. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    24. Sam Tavassoli & Nunzia Carbonara, 2014. "The role of knowledge variety and intensity for regional innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 493-509, August.
    25. Mark Granovetter, 2005. "The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 33-50, Winter.
    26. Frank Pot & Fietje Vaas, 2008. "Social innovation, the new challenge for Europe," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 57(6), pages 468-473, July.
    27. Tiago Neves Sequeira & Paulo Macas Nunes, 2008. "Does tourism influence economic growth? A dynamic panel data approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(18), pages 2431-2441.
    28. S. Longhi & P. Nijkamp & J. Poot, 2010. "Joint impacts of immigration on wages and employment: review and meta-analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 355-387, December.
    29. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri, 2021. "The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 7, pages 187-222, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    30. Asheim, Bjorn T. & Coenen, Lars, 2005. "Knowledge bases and regional innovation systems: Comparing Nordic clusters," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1173-1190, October.
    31. Escribano, Alvaro & Fosfuri, Andrea & Tribó, Josep A., 2009. "Managing external knowledge flows: The moderating role of absorptive capacity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 96-105, February.
    32. Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot & Mediha Sahin (ed.), 2012. "Migration Impact Assessment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14476.
    33. Aldebert, Bénédicte & Dang, Rani J. & Longhi, Christian, 2011. "Innovation in the tourism industry: The case of Tourism@," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1204-1213.
    34. Michaela Trippl, 2010. "Developing Cross‐Border Regional Innovation Systems: Key Factors And Challenges," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 101(2), pages 150-160, April.
    35. André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), 2014. "Regional Development and Proximity Relations," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14813.
    36. Fabrizio, Kira R., 2009. "Absorptive capacity and the search for innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 255-267, March.
    37. Aarstad, Jarle & Ness, Håvard & Haugland, Sven A., 2015. "Innovation, uncertainty, and inter-firm shortcut ties in a tourism destination context," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 354-361.
    38. Michael Fritsch & Holger Graf, 2011. "How sub‐national conditions affect regional innovation systems: The case of the two Germanys," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(2), pages 331-353, June.
    39. Jean-Jacques Nowak & Mondher Sahli & Isabel Cortés-Jiménez, 2007. "Tourism, Capital Good Imports and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence for Spain," Tourism Economics, , vol. 13(4), pages 515-536, December.
    40. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    41. Bénédicte Aldebert & Rani Jeanne Dang & Christian Longhi, 2011. "Innovation in the tourism industry : the case of tourism@," Post-Print halshs-00721551, HAL.
    42. Benur, Abdelati M. & Bramwell, Bill, 2015. "Tourism product development and product diversification in destinations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 213-224.
    43. Cohen, Wesley M & Levinthal, Daniel A, 1989. "Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 569-596, September.
    44. Philip McCann, 2007. "Sketching Out a Model of Innovation, Face-to-face Interaction and Economic Geography," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 117-134.
    45. Albaladejo, Isabel P. & González-Martínez, María Isabel & Martínez-García, María Pilar, 2014. "Quality and endogenous tourism: An empirical approach," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 141-147.
    46. Ron Adner & Daniel Levinthal, 2001. "Demand Heterogeneity and Technology Evolution: Implications for Product and Process Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(5), pages 611-628, May.
    47. Arslanturk, Yalcin & Balcilar, Mehmet & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin, 2011. "Time-varying linkages between tourism receipts and economic growth in a small open economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 664-671.
    48. Lokman Gunduz & Abdulnasser Hatemi-J, 2005. "Is the tourism-led growth hypothesis valid for Turkey?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 499-504.
    49. Ron Boschma, 2005. "Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 61-74.
    50. Bart Nooteboom, 2000. "Learning by Interaction: Absorptive Capacity, Cognitive Distance and Governance," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 4(1), pages 69-92, March.
    51. Anne Kallio & Vesa Harmaakorpi & Timo Pihkala, 2010. "Absorptive Capacity and Social Capital in Regional Innovation Systems: The Case of the Lahti Region in Finland," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(2), pages 303-319, February.
    52. Kuo, Chun-Chien & Yang, Chih-Hai, 2008. "Knowledge capital and spillover on regional economic growth: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 594-604, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rakas, Marija & Hain, Daniel S., 2019. "The state of innovation system research: What happens beneath the surface?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    2. Cristiano Antonelli & Francesco Crespi & Christian A. Mongeau Ospina & Giuseppe Scellato, 2017. "Knowledge composition, Jacobs externalities and innovation performance in European regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(11), pages 1708-1720, November.
    3. Lau, Antonio K.W. & Lo, William, 2015. "Regional innovation system, absorptive capacity and innovation performance: An empirical study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 99-114.
    4. Grillitsch, Markus, 2014. "Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    5. Markus Grillitsch, 2014. "Regional Transformation: Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," ERSA conference papers ersa14p1481, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Souzanchi Kashani, Ebrahim & Roshani, Saeed, 2019. "Evolution of innovation system literature: Intellectual bases and emerging trends," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 68-80.
    7. Aurélie LALANNE & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    8. Ceren Ozgen & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2012. "Immigration and innovation in European regions," Chapters, in: Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot & Mediha Sahin (ed.), Migration Impact Assessment, chapter 8, pages 261-298, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Liu, Jingjing & Nijkamp, Peter & Lin, Derong, 2017. "Urban-rural imbalance and Tourism-Led Growth in China," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 24-36.
    10. Nicola Cortinovis & Frank van Oort, 2017. "Between spilling over and boiling down: network-mediated spillovers, absorptive capacity and productivity in European regions," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-118/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Helen McGuirk & Declan Jordan, 2011. "Local Labour Market Diversity and Business Innovation: Evidence from Irish Manufacturing Businesses," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(12), pages 1945-1960, June.
    12. Giorgio Prodi & Federico Frattini & Francesco Nicolli, 2018. "The diffusion and embeddedness of innovative activities in China," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(1), pages 71-106, April.
    13. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Bram Timmermans, 2017. "Knowledge bases and relatedness: A study of labour mobility in Norwegian regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1712, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2017.
    14. Dahesh, Mehran Badin & Tabarsa, Gholamali & Zandieh, Mostafa & Hamidizadeh, Mohammadreza, 2020. "Reviewing the intellectual structure and evolution of the innovation systems approach: A social network analysis," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Sonia Cruz-Ros & Diana L. Guerrero-Sánchez & Maria-Jose Miquel-Romero, 2021. "Absorptive capacity and its impact on innovation and performance: findings from SEM and fsQCA," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 235-249, February.
    16. Jun Koo & Tae‐Eun Kim, 2009. "When R&D matters for regional growth: A tripod approach," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(4), pages 825-840, November.
    17. Bangjuan Wang & Weisheng Mao & Junxian Piao & Chengliang Liu, 2023. "Does external linkage stimulate innovation capacity? The analysis based on “dual‐pipelines” framework," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 613-633, June.
    18. Lara Agostini & Federico Caviggioli & Francesco Galati & Barbara Bigliardi, 2020. "A social perspective of knowledge-based innovation: mobility and agglomeration. Introduction to the special section," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(5), pages 1309-1323, October.
    19. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin, 2010. "The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci & Marco Pontis, 2012. "Intangible capital and firms' productivity," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 21(2), pages 377-402, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inbound tourism; regional innovation; absorptive capability; spatial panel data analysis; China.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p600. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.