Does world heritage list really induce more tourists? Evidence from Macau.

It is commonly believed that being listed on the World Heritage List (WHL) results in attracting more tourists. However, this assumption has not been generally subject to rigorous econometric approach in the existing literature. To fill this gap, we assess the impact of the accreditation World Heritage status on the "Historic Centre of Macau" in 2005 on visitor numbers to the territory to identify the real effect of WHL on fostering tourism. In doing so, because of the policy restrictions on the mainland Chinese tourists, such tourists have been excluded from the analysis. The empirical results indicate that there is no significant effect of WHL on promoting tourism other than possibly a short-run tourism-enhancing impact. Notably, this effect is particularly relevant to Asian tourists. This paper discusses these results in the wider context of econometric analyses of tourism.

Analysis of international tourist arrivals in China: The role of World Heritage Sites.

This paper analyzes the determinants of international tourist arrivals in China, especially for World Heritage Sites and various kinds of travel spots. Utilizing annual provincial panel data over the 2000-2005 period, the empirical results suggest that key determinants include the relative income, population in the original country, cost of travel, and tourism infrastructure. In addition, World Heritage Sites are also found to be significant in explaining the numbers of international tourists and have a greater tourist-enhancing effect. Other famous tourist sites rated 4A- and 3A-class are also attractive to foreign tourism. Moreover, cultural rather than natural sites attract more interest among foreign tourists, because China is internationally renowned for its long-standing historical and cultural assets. Finally, the importance of the determinants of the demand for tourism varies from country to country.

Analysis of regional productivity growth in China: A generalized metafrontier MPI approach.

This paper analyzes the dynamics of China's productivity for the period 1996-2004 with a newly developed methodology - generalized metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (gMMPI). Implementing the gMMPI, this paper reviews the inequality of the coastal and non-coastal provinces, as well as the latent impact of scale efficiency change (SEC) for China. Using provincial data for the years 1996-2004, the empirical results are as follows. On average, China demonstrates an annual 3.191% productivity change, which is lower than 4.729% for the conventional MPI and accounts for about 26.508% of output growth over the period 1996-2004. Most of this change is propelled by technical progress, while a fraction is driven by the adjustment in production scale, and the efficiency change has an adverse effect. Furthermore, regional inequality is also found in this empirical work, and the productivity change of the coastal region is actually stronger than that of the non-coastal region. This paper also casts some focus on the China Western Development policy. Indeed, we do not find any outstanding achievement from the policy in the sample period, except that the west region sustained its rate of productivity change after 2000. Moreover, the SEC is found to be trivial in the advanced coastal region, but plays an important role in the relatively laggard non-coastal region. The implication of the positive SEC in the non-coastal region means that China's Western Development policy will improve the scale efficiency and the TFP growth of the west region.