Tourism Eco-Efficiency and Influence Factors of Chinese Forest Parks under Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Target

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper studies Tourism Eco efficiency and Influence Factors of Chinese Forest Parks through a variety of measurement methods. The research conclusion has important reference significance for the sustainable development of forest parks in China. This study is interesting, but the paper has the following shortcomings:

1. There are too few conclusions in the summary, so it is recommended to supplement appropriately.

2. The literature review is not detailed, and it is suggested to discuss in detail in several parts

3. There is no correspondence between the content of the paper and carbon peaking and carbon neutralization. It is suggested to add a part of theoretical analysis from the corresponding relationship between eco efficiency evaluation of forestry tourism and carbon speaking and carbon neutrality targets.

4. “3.1. The Eco efficiency evaluation of forest tourism” is moved to Part 2 and the title 3.1.1 is removed.

5. The theoretical basis of Eco efficiency evaluation of forest tourism is insufficient. The connotation of ecological efficiency is relatively broad, and it is generally considered from human resources, capital, land, energy and other aspects, and the indicators selected by the author are not close enough to the Eco efficiency of forest tourism.

6. The spatio-temporal evolution analysis of eco efficiency of forestry tourism is not detailed enough. What are the spatial characteristics? What are the factors influencing the formation of this feature?

7. The analysis of influencing factors is not deep enough. It is suggested to analyze theoretically how various factors affect the Eco efficiency of forest tourism? In addition, the selected influencing factors are not typical.

8. The discussion part of the paper is not in-depth. What are the main contributions of this paper? Compared with previous studies, what are the similarities or differences between the conclusions of this paper? What are the policy implications of this study?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the authors use quantitative analysis method to analyze the tourism eco-efficiency and its influencing factors. There are some problems in this version:

1.     Title: under carbon peaking and carbon neutrality target were not discussed in the main body. They were not even appeared in the main body.

2.     From 2010-2019 should be from 2010 to 2019.

3.     What does interactive development mean?

4.     Introduction should be rewritten. In this part, they should tell the reader the following information: what is the research question? Why it is important？What is the research gap? And what is your innovation and contribution.

5.     The citation format is not correct. First, use either author (year) or using [number] is enough, do not combine them. Second, when there are more than two author, et al should be used. Third, use the author’s family name, not the full name.

6.     The explanation of formula (1) is not complete. What is the meaning of R. Is P the annual total number of tourists? It should be the number of forest part tourist.  Since Y is the denominator, it should not be the ratio over forest park area.

7.     Where is the equilibrium factor from? What is the effect of this factor, what does 1.41 mean? What is ignored?

8.     There are two formula (1).

9.     The explanation of DEA game cross-efficiency model is not clear. There should be something wrong in the formulas and the explanations. Please make a check.

10. For the panel tobit model, the index should be it, not only i. And the efficiency is between 0 and 1, so it is double censored, not only left censored.

11. The explanation of the source of data is not clear. Some statistical yearbooks were used but not reported in this part.

12. Line 131, this sentence should be rewritten.

13. Tourism ecological footprint is not a good input index because the index itself measures the tourism ecological effects.

14. I do not think the methods of calculating the undesirable output are reasonable. Forest parks are quite different with other industry production process.

15. Nei Monggol should be Inner Mongolia. Shanxi and Shaanxi should be distinguished.

16. Table 2 and 3, the results for year 2010 and 2011 should be also reported.

17. What do the lines in figure 1 mean?

18. Table 3, the results for Ningxia is rather strange.

19. The hypothesis should be fully developed if you want to use them. Give the reasons.

20. There are 30 provinces and 10 years, how can the samples be 360?

21. Formula (5), mu_i should be mu_it. The explanations of this formula should be checked. There are something wrong in this version.

22. Table 4, I strongly doubt the correctness of the numbers. The z-statistics and p-values are not fulfill the usual calculating rule. Please make a check.

23. Houseman test should be Hausman test. Table 3 should be table 4.

24. Discussion should be greatly enlarged. Discuss the meaning of the results and make a comparison with the literature. And explain some unusual results.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

For my comments and suggestion, see attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been fully revised and is recommended to be published.

Author Response

Thank you for your approval of this paper and for your suggestions for revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

In this revised version, the authors have made some improvements according to reviewer’s suggestions. However, there are still some obvious problems exist in this version:

1.     Line 10, from 2010-2019 should be from 2010 to 2019.

2.     Line 11, Primary factors should be primary factors.

3.     Line 23, there should be a reference to show the source of the number 51 billion tons, according to statistics is not informative.

4.     The citation format is not correct. Use either author (year) or using [number] is enough, do not combine them. This problem still exists in many places, for example, lines 70, 74, 83. Please make a careful check all through this paper.

5.     Line 99 and130, for citations, use the author’s family name, not the full name.

6.     Line 231, Heilongjiang Province should be Heilongjiang.

7.     Table 2, Mongolia should be Inner Mongolia. There are two Shanxi.

8.     Figure 1, there are only 6 lines, so cannot represent all the provinces. In fact, some lines were omitted. Since it is hard to show all the provinces, I suggest you show the average of the provinces which would be enough and have a better look.

9.     Table 3, Nei Monggol should be Inner Mongolia.

10. Line 333, for hypothesis, there should not be a reference [25].

11. Line 339, SUN et al should be Sun et al.

12. Table 4, I strongly doubt the correctness of the numbers. The z-statistics and p-values are not fulfill the usual calculating rule.  According to the usual calculating rule, the z statistic should be approximately equal to coefficient divide standard error. However, in your case, for lnTL, the difference is very large. Please make a check.

13. The reference format are not consistent. For example, Qian Qiming, Yue L, Ren Wanyu, LI H D, WANG S Y,  Hou Guiying, Zhang JJ.

Author Response

Thanks again for your comment, my response and corrections are in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I have a few comments on 4. Discussion especially in line 462, i.e., replace "The conclusion" to "The finding...". After correction, it is ready for publication. 

Author Response

Thank you for your advice, it has been corrected.