Earthquake and Tourism Destination Resilience from the Perspective of Regional Economic Resilience

Abstract

With the increasing uncertainty and complexity of disasters, the tourism industry in disaster-stricken areas is often hard hit, so it is urgent to improve the resilience of the tourism industry. Based on the perspective of regional economic resilience, this study takes Wenchuan earthquake as an example to explore the theoretical framework, research ideas and methods of tourist destination resilience. The industry policy should be included in the resilience construction to theoretically respond to the reasons for the improvement of the resilience and sustainability of tourism industry in the post-disaster recovery. Taking Sichuan tourism as the research object, this paper estimated the impact of Wenchuan earthquake on Sichuan tourism and the effect of industrial policies on the resilience of the tourism industry in the post-disaster recovery. The results show that the total revenue loss of Sichuan tourism industry brought by Wenchuan earthquake is 87.298 billion yuan, and the post-disaster recovery window period is 7 years (2008–2014). After the earthquake, the industrial policy measures taken have effectively improved the resilience of Sichuan’s tourism industry, making it reach the level that it would have been before the earthquake and assuming that there had been no earthquake.

1. Introduction

Tourism is the most important industry globally [1], and one of the sectors most vulnerable to risk and disaster. While tourism is complex, its essential quality of openness relies heavily on the external environment [2]. It can be heavily damaged by catastrophic events, reducing attraction and weakening tourism demand. Subsequently, effectively navigating the tourism crisis and fortifying tourism resilience have become the focus of intergovernmental organizations and academia [3].

In order to respond to the call of global sustainable development, promote the creation of healthy, safe and comfortable tourism environment, resist the invasion of natural disasters, and form the resilience system of tourism destinations and tourism industry, this study focuses on the sustainable resilience model of tourism destinations.To help readers understand the tremendous impact of earthquakes, we use the Wenchuan earthquake as an example:

After the Wenchuan earthquake, government departments at all levels actively responded to the severe impact caused by the earthquake. On the day of the earthquake, the National Tourism Administration issued a notice: “About the Suspension of Group Travel to and from Sichuan Earthquake Area”, and tourism in Sichuan Province was temporarily suspended. On 28 May, the State Council Earthquake Relief Headquarters issued the Notice on the Current Progress of Earthquake Relief and Disaster Relief and Tasks in the Next Stage.” “Resuming production and post-disaster reconstruction” became the major task of the second stage. The State Council then successively promulgated the policies. These regulations and other policies provided a framework guiding post-disaster reconstruction in earthquake-stricken areas. These intensive policies demonstrate the agility and robustness of the national power and system in the face of disasters, and are why Sichuan Province tourism maintained its resilience. Following the macro-oriented recovery and reconstruction policies, the State Council, Sichuan Provincial Government, and other governments at all levels have successively issued post-disaster recovery and reconstruction plans suitable for regional development. Tourism has become an industry with local features and advantages for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. The 51 hard-hit counties affected by the earthquake are located in the transitional zone from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Sichuan Basin. In these areas, the economic foundation is relatively weak; however, with its diverse history and culture and rich natural and human resources, these areas play an important ecological function in southwest China. Therefore, tourism has attracted much attention as an important driving force of the regional economy.

Natural disasters, like earthquakes, seriously impact regional security, industrial development, and the ecological environment. The direct economic losses amounted to CNY 843.77 billion, and the post-disaster reconstruction work faces the problems of resettlement and infrastructure reconstruction in the disaster area, considering the relationship between ecological vulnerability and industrial development.

The term “tourism destination resilience” is the theoretical expression of resilience in tourism and regional economic research [4]. It refers to “the ability to resist, adapt to and prepare itself for disturbances” [5]. Although research has covered the impact of crisis events on tourism destinations, a structured understanding of the vulnerability caused by crises as the product of spatial aggregation of tourism elements and tourism destinations resilience to events have not been effectively demonstrated [6].

Differentiating from psychological resilience at the micro-level or organizational resilience at the meso-level, regional economic resilience (RER), based on the possible responses of regional economies to economic shocks, has provided new insights into destination resilience. According to the RER theory, factors such as economic recession, policy changes, and technological breakthroughs may disrupt regional economic development, leading to economic vulnerability. However, resistance, adaptability, and transformation are possibly generated to strengthen resilience. Therefore, this study explores the vulnerability of tourism destinations, the impact of crisis events on destinations, restoration and reconstruction of destinations, and causes of destination resilience, offering a systematic understanding of destination resilience from a spatial perspective.

Against the background of the Wenchuan earthquake, tourism in Sichuan Province was chosen as the case study for several reasons. First, it was the first province in China to achieve a tourism income accounting for more than 8% of the regional GDP [7]. Second, the 8.0 magnitude of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 was the most destructive since the founding of new China, with the largest affected area and the most formidable earthquake relief work. Although the tourism industry in Sichuan Province was hit hard, its crisis response and recovery sets an example for the world.

Although there are many research methods on tourism destinations after the earthquake disaster, there is still a lack of rigorous research on how to scientifically understand the real impact of Wenchuan earthquake on tourism destinations in Sichuan, which is a famous habitat and tourism destination for giant pandas in China and even the world. This approach presents a natural experiment that fills the gap between geographical barriers and government policy support for exploration. This study develops RER under the framework of tourism resilience, which is empirically verified in Sichuan Province’s context. The RER method is associated with the impact of the chronological order, intensity of the shock, and degree and regional differences in the crisis events on the regional tourism system. It provides a mechanism for disaster-impacted tourism resilience from the theoretical level. Finally, an exploratory study on tourism policies in Sichuan Province demonstrates that policies can improve tourism resilience. This provides a preliminary answer to the theoretical debate on whether policies can improve resilience in China’s context. Through the research, the influence factors of earthquake and geological disasters on the economic resilience of tourist destinations are predicted, as well as the important role of national administrative policies in improving post-natural disaster reconstruction, which provides a basis for the formulation of post-disaster emergency plans.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Literature Review: Research on Earthquake and Tourism Destinations

A crisis is “a serious threat to the basic structure or fundamental value and institutional paradigm of a social system” [8]. Scholars in different fields define tourism crises from different perspectives. For example, Allen et al.idefined crises depending on the economic attributes of tourism, whereas other studies have categorized crises according to the types and states of the crises [5]. In the latest meta-study, Duan et al. divided crises into seven major categories and 38 types according to their different states [2].

Unlike other tourism crises, earthquakes are characterized by abruptness, destructiveness, coupling of consequences, and unpredictability. Scholars have extensively investigated the impact of various earthquakes on regional tourism development: the 1997 Umbria earthquake in Italy [9], 21 September 1999 Taiwan earthquake in China [10], 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China [11], 2015 Nepal earthquake [12] and 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake [13]. This study focuses on the impact of earthquakes on tourism and Economy Recovery after earthquakes.

2.2. Resilience and Sustainability

Studies have suggested improving disaster resilience by strengthening social infrastructure at the community level [14]. Resilience is not the opposite of social vulnerability, but a conceptually and empirically distinct structure, disaster risk reduction scenarios involve transforming rather than preserving “state” systems [15,16,17,18]. These studies have triggered discussions among scholars on global change and contemporary sustainable development strategies [19]. Simulation and analysis of disasters are alternative strategies to improve resilience and sustainability [18,20,21].

2.3. Impact of Earthquakes on Destination Tourism

Regarding the impact of earthquakes on tourism destinations, empirical studies have generally produced two kinds of results. Some scholars claim earthquakes have a devastating impact on demand for tourism destinations, as evidenced in Huang et al.’s research, which is based on the seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model for inbound tourism demand forecasting Comparing various crises’ impacts on tourism, scholars found that the impact of earthquakes was second only to public health events [22]. Zhang et al. found that earthquakes are likely to change the attractiveness of tourist destinations while the impact on the larger region tends to decrease [23].

2.4. Tourism Recovery and Reconstruction after Earthquakes

How can tourism destinations recover after crises? This is a core issue of tourism crisis management. Post-disaster tourism recovery is defined as formulating and implementing strategies and measures to restore a tourist destination to its normal (pre-event) state or improve its state [24]. To better realize post-disaster tourism recovery and reconstruction, many scholars have focused on regional governance experiences. According to Mair et al.’s systematic review of 64 studies, the following strategies and actions aid tourism recovery: communication with stakeholders, including managers and customers; the media narrative; marketing strategies; crisis contingency plans; destination reputation management; and tourist behavior management [24]. The above strategic actions constitute stakeholder management.

Numerous studies have found that national forces and policies play an indispensable role in post-earthquake tourism recovery in different cultures [25]. Research has also explored the effect of post-disaster tourism recovery and reconstruction. The recovery determines whether tourism can rebound after disasters and engage actively in the regional economy. The impact of earthquakes on tourism and reconstruction after earthquakes constitute two aspects of crisis management. However, existing studies are often fragmented, static, and lack relevance. From existing cases: We take the Wenchuan earthquake as an example, some scholars have used the natural trend curvethe comparative study and other methods to examine the earthquake’s ripple effect on the emergency response in Sichuan Province and surrounding provinces, as well as the non-disaster scenic spots in Sichuan Province [26,27]. However, the results are less than satisfactory.To form a diversified picture of post-earthquake tourism recovery and reconstruction, researchers have studied tourists’ motivation and policy planning in post-earthquake tourism reconstruction [6]. however, the lack of a theoretical perspective inhibits further outputs. Calgaro et al. proposed a sustainable development framework for tourism destinations [28], Amore et al. condensed the resilience framework [29], and Wakil et al. built a “co-flourishing” sharing framework using the resilience of the tourism community [30].

Consequently, a knowledge gap still exists in understanding tourism disaster management. Establishing an explanatory framework of destination disaster management from the perspective of resilience is necessary.Additionally, based on practical experience in China, this study intends to offer a new perspective on tourism crisis management.

2.5. Destination Resilience Framework from the Perspective of Regional Economic Resilience

Tourism Destination Resilience

Resilience is a response to inevitable shocks and includes stability, adaptation, and renewal within the system, which can be either the result of an emergency or the output of incremental change [31]. Hall et al. conceptualize tourism resilience at different levels and types [32]. First, individual resilience refers to enhancing psychological resilience from the perspective of tourists, organization members, and other stakeholders. Second, organizational and community resilience at the meso-level examine how tourism enterprises, management organizations, and communities react to shocks and threats. Lastly, destination resilience explores how systems respond to complexity from spatial and holistic perspectives.

2.6. Destination Resilience from a Regional Perspective

The two volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2010 significantly affected the flight situation in Europe and, in turn, its tourism industry. The temporal-spatial imbalance of their impact on tourism has caused some ripple effects compared to the direct impact. The non-neutrality of the impact of disasters has attracted the attention of regional economy and tourism geography scholars, who have applied resilience using spatial perspectives after the financial crisis in 2008. As a holistic framework, regional resilience approaches resilience dynamically and systematically [33]. Moreover, earthquakes and their socio-economic impact on tourism register as characteristics of spatial differentiation.

Resilience encompasses decline and recovery in two successive stages, as illustrated by Martin. This model shows 5 steps, before experiencing shock, the region develops along a specific path while being vulnerable, characterized by some degree of exposure and sensitivity. Along with the development of risks or sudden shocks, the degree of the recession is disclosed and reflects the economy’s resistance. Later, the economy responds to the shock, and the response capability and quality demonstrate the adaptability and recovery ability of the regional economy in a recession. The restructuring and emergence of new growth paths build up the renewal and reorientation of the economy to deal with the shock. Resistance, resilience, renewal, and reorientation constitute the four interconnected dimensions of RER [34].

Shocks can be defined as the deviation of an economy from its “maximum feasible growth path” and the resilience process includes shocks and subsequent recovery processes. Martin et al. [34] subdivided the influencing factors of RER into structural and business, labor market, financial, institutional and decision-making, and governance subsystems [35]. However, governance and related policy tools play a crucial role in crisis responses, recovery, and reconstruction [36,37]. RER from the perspectives of space, economy, and integrity, provides a logical possibility for clarifying and explaining destination regional resilience. Crises can be classified in various ways, including acute and chronic crises, but only the former has been probed in regional resilience analyses. How resilience develops is also an important research argument. Thestudy reviewed the process of “vulnerability-reference-impact-response-recovery” from a diachronic perspective, explored whether destination tourism recovered and transformed, and investigated the specific forms of resilience. Thus, to understand the role resilience may play in shaping the spatial dynamics of tourism economic growth and development, it seems that the concept of resilience is highly relevant to analyzing how regions and tourist destinations respond to and recover from shocks.

2.7. Research Design and Method

There is no coherent approach to measuring the response of regional economies to economic cycles, which are often interpreted as recession, subsequent expansions, and recoveries. However, the existing research offers perspectives for reference. The first is to use the periodic statistical trend to describe the cycle of economic fluctuations [38]. However, due to the uncertainty of economic activities, the method may misestimate the strength and turning points of cycles [39]. The second method employs time series data to project the movement of the regional economy on a long-term equilibrium path, and shocks are regarded as deviations [39]. The third method engages causal models in constructing counter-facts, while shocks are regarded as the deviation of regional economies from the assumed path when they were not hit and the subsequent recovery process. Compared with the first two methods, the quasi-natural experimental calculation model adopted by the counterfactual method can more accurately measure the causal relationship between shocks and related economic variables, and this method is used in this study to measure resilience.

2.8. Model Specification

The synthetic control method was first proposed by Abadie and Gardeazabal in 2003. The basic ideas are as follows. When finding a single control group is difficult, a “counterfactual” control unit is constructed according to the existing data and a target unit. The event’s effect is evaluated by the difference between the target group and the synthetic control group after the event, called the “experimental effect”. Abadie et al. [40] used the synthetic control method to measure changes in Californian cigarette sales after a smoking ban in 1988.

In this study, the tourism development of “1 + N” provinces (cities and autonomous regions) are observed, where “1” represents the experimental group (Sichuan Province). If the Wenchuan earthquake is assumed to be the implementation of the “reverse policy” to suppress the development of the tourism industry, “N” represents the control group of other provinces, which are unaffected by the Wenchuan earthquake. “T” is the time when the shock happened, namely in 2008. “Yit,0” represents the results of province i when it did not receive a shock. “Yit,1” represents the result after it was influenced in T, and “Yit” represents the total income of tourism in province i in T. “Dit” is set as a dummy variable. When T < 2008 and “Dit = 0,” province i has been unaffected by the earthquake. When “Dit = 1,” province i was affected by the earthquake. Thus, αit = Yit and 1-Yit,0, where “αit” stands for the shock effect caused by the earthquake. Therefore, to obtain “αit,” “Yit,1 and Yit,0” must be known, and a counterfactual model must be constructed to estimate “Yit,0”. According to the factor model proposed by Abadie et al. the following model is presented in this study [40].

$$\mathrm{Yit},0={\mathsf{\delta }}_{\mathrm{t}}+{\mathsf{\theta }}_{\mathrm{t}}{\mathrm{Z}}_{\mathrm{i}}+{\mathsf{\lambda }}_{\mathrm{t}}{\mathsf{\mu }}_{\mathrm{i}}+{\mathsf{\epsilon }}_{\mathrm{it}}$$

(1)

where “δt” signifies the time trend and “Zi” is the observable control variable that is unaffected by earthquakes. “θt” is the unknown parameter vector of the (1 × r) dimension. “λt” is the common factor vector that cannot be observed in the (1 × F) dimension and “μi” is the observable fixed effect of provinces of the (F × 1) dimension, and “εit” is the observable short-term impact, with an average value of 0. It can be estimated using this equation, and the solution is to simulate the characteristics of the experimental group by the regional weighting of the control group and then achieve the effect of an approximate simulation by calculating the optimal weight.

2.9. Data Sources and Variables

Data sources:Panel data from 31 provinces (except Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) in China from 2001 to 2015 was used for the analysis. The tourism-related data was collated from the Tourism Statistics Almanac, and other data are from provincial statistics almanacs. The weighted average of other provinces was used to simulate the potential tourism revenue of Sichuan Province under the circumstance of no earthquake. Then, the data was compared with the total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province to estimate the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake. According to the synthetic control method, weights were chosen to make the synthetic factors that determine the tourism income of Sichuan Province as consistent as possible with that before the earthquake. Thus, the explained variable selected in this study is total tourism income, and the control variables are the number of domestic tourists, inbound tourist numbers, domestic tourism income, inbound tourism income, employment in tertiary industries, total fixed asset investments, and per capita GDP. Among them, domestic tourist numbers, inbound tourist numbers, domestic tourism income, and inbound tourism income are important indicators of tourism statistics, which directly affect the total tourism income. The tourism industry is highly correlated. Employment in tertiary industry, fixed asset investment, and per capita GDP were chosen as control variables to represent the development of tertiary industry, infrastructure investment in the tourism industry, and the tourism consumption demand of each province to reflect the impact of regional economic development on Sichuan Province tourism.

2.10. Variable Description and Description Statistics

Li et al. integrated the process of RER in the face of shocks and recessions and classified the empirical research on this topic into two categories [41]. The first is the measurement and evaluation of RER. In the early stage, some scholars used the concept of Hollin’s evolutionary resilience to construct an indicator system to measure RER. No consensus existed on selecting a package of indicators, and the measurement results were highly subjective. As “the response of regional economies to the impact of recession” became the core paradigm of the research on RER, the measurement of RER has shifted to that of core variables. Martin et al. advocated using output variables, such as the unemployment rate and real GDP, to identify RER [34]. Martin et al. believed that using expected or counterfactual regional comparison methods is more convincing [35]. Additionally, many studies have used the “average ratio of trend” to estimate the recession and recovery of each county in the United States.

2.11. Empirical Research

Vulnerability and impact: The vulnerability of tourism in Sichuan Province and the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on the destinationThe Wenchuan earthquake has been the most destructive since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The affected areas included 51 counties in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi provinces. In particular, Chengdu, Deyang, Mianyang, Guangyuan, Aba, and Ya’an abound with tourism resources, such as Jiuzhaigou-Huanglong, the giant panda habitat, Qingcheng Mountain-Dujiangyan, and other world heritage sites; 12 national 4A level scenic spots; 12 national natural reserves; nine national geo-parks; 15 national forest parks; and 39 national key cultural relics protection units. Additionally, this region has many tourist cities, famous historical and cultural cities, and rural tourism and leisure vacation destinations. The natural scenery of western Sichuan Province and the cultural landscape of eastern Sichuan Province are intertwined, forming a diversified tourism market. This region is a relatively developed tourism area in Sichuan Province. Before the earthquake in 2007, the total tourism revenue of Chengdu and the other six worst-hit cities had already reached CNY 68 billion, accounting for about 56% of the total tourism revenue of the province.

Tourism in Chengdu, the other six cities and prefectures, and the whole Sichuan Province maintained a strong growth momentum before the earthquake. Calgaro et al. applied the concept of vulnerability to tourism research and expanded it into three key components of “exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability” [28]. First, exposure is understood as the degree to which exposure units are exposed to risk or shocks. Sichuan Province is located at the intersection of the first and second tiers of topography in China, with extensive fault zones and frequent geological disasters. Frequent disaster events severely impacted the local social economy and tourism.

Second, Sichuan Province, especially western Sichuan Province, is endowed with intense tourism resources but is frequently exposed to various risks and sensitive to shocks. Third, the ecological fragility of the region meant that the damage to scenic spots was irreversible. Fourth, the weak regional economy and industrial infrastructure make tourism enterprises and organizations unable to maintain effective interactions with the regional economy. Fifth, the degree of sensitivity will be magnified by complex social conditions, multi-ethnic communities, and regional poverty.

Finally, Calgaro et al. analyzed adaptability from both short- and long-term perspectives. Shortly after the Wenchuan earthquake on 12 May 2008, the National Tourism Administration issued an emergency notice requiring “immediate suspension of travel activity to the disaster area or that through the disaster area” [28]. The province’s tourism did not resume until 15 June 2008. In the short term, the total income decreased, but in the long term, the people-oriented management policy maintained the market confidence and the tourism image of Sichuan Province. Additionally, after entering the second stage of earthquake relief, the province implemented post-disaster tourism recovery and reconstruction. Driven by a strong policy potential, tourism gradually recovered and entered a new stage of development.

Earthquakes have changed the geological and geomorphic conditions of tourist destinations and the basic conditions of tourism development in the region, seriously damaging the production capacity of regional tourism. The disaster areas of the Wenchuan earthquake are mainly distributed along the Longmen Mountain fault belt. During the earthquake, 1979 scenic spots were damaged, more than 5300 km of tourist roads were destroyed, and scenic spots and tourist infrastructure were severely affected.

The Wenchuan earthquake dealt a huge blow to the tourism safety image of Sichuan Province and the confidence of domestic and foreign tourists. During the period affected by the earthquake, tourism in Sichuan Province dropped by 90%. For example, the city of Mianyang was most severely affected by the disaster, with the number of domestic tourists falling from 13.38 million at the end of 2007 to 7.42 million at the end of 2008. Consequently, the total tourism revenue decreased by more than 50%, and tourism did not recover to pre-earthquake levels until 2011.

2.12. Resistance and Resilience: Quantitative Analysis of Tourism Destination Resilience

The anatomy of regional resilience is used for measuring the resistance and recovery of a region in the face of economic shocks and the degree of structural and organizational changes involved. Existing research has used various methods to measure these changes, including descriptive case studies and quantitative econometric analyses. For example, some scholars have used impulse response functions to measure the recovery characteristics of regional economies. The impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on tourism in Sichuan Province and the post-disaster recovery and reconstruction process are quantified using the RCT counterfactual synthetic control method. The following data are verified using Stata13.0 software and the Synth program.

The synthetic results from Sichuan Province. The counterfactual object of Sichuan Province was constructed based on the control group of provinces unaffected by the earthquake. In this process, the weights of different provinces that constitute “synthetic results of Sichuan” are different, and the sum of the weights is set as 1. The specification of the weight combination in

Table 1. Province weights for synthesized Sichuan.

	Tianjin	Henan	Hubei	Yunnan
Weight	0.027	0.776	0.005	0.193

and

Table 2. The mean value of total tourism income (CNY, billion) in Sichuan Province and synthetic Sichuan Province.

Year	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Actual	314.27	380.20	420.82	566.20	721.30	979.60	1217.30	1092.36
Synthetic	382.21	413.91	353.47	556.15	749.34	954.33	1217.25	1426.80
Year	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Actual	1472.5	1886.1	2449.20	3280.3	3877.40	4891.00	6210.50
Synthetic	1767.5	2056.9	2521.90	3058.9	3537.75	4036.98	4686.82

presents the comparison of critical economic variables between the actual and synthetic Sichuan Province before the Wenchuan earthquake, from 2001–2007. The difference between the actual and synthetic values of total tourism revenue in Sichuan Province is only 0.1%. The fitting effect was tested at the time nodes of 2002, 2004, and 2006. It was discovered that the difference in tourism revenue was relatively small, only about 2%, indicating the synthetic result of the total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province was quite satisfactory. The development path of the actual value was also fitted. Of all the predictors selected, only the synthetic value of per capita GDP is slightly different from the real one.

2.13. Evaluation of the Impact of the Wenchuan Earthquake

Before the earthquake in 2008, the development paths of tourism revenue in the actual and the synthetic Sichuan Provinces were consistent. In the year of the earthquake, the slope of the real tourism revenue curve in turns negative. Without the earthquake, the total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province in 2008 should have reached CNY 142.68 billion, but it was only CNY 109.236 billion, a negative gap of CNY 33.444 billion.

To demonstrate the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on tourism in Sichuan Province more intuitively, the total tourism income gap between the real and synthetic Sichuan Provinces before and after the earthquake was calculated, as illustrated in Figure A2 (Appendix A). From 2001 to 2007, the gap fluctuates within CNY 7 billion, with an amplitude of only about 10%. After the earthquake in 2008, the gap enlarged significantly. From 2008 to 2011, the total tourism revenue of the actual Sichuan Province was CNY 34.558 billion, CNY 312.82 billion, CNY 19.342 billion, and CNY 10.197 billion lower than that of synthetic Sichuan. The total tourism revenue of the real Sichuan Province from 2012 to 2015 is CNY 18.839 billion, CNY 29.931 billion, CNY 81.405 billion, and CNY 68.024 billion higher than that of synthetic Sichuan. This result demonstrates that the Wenchuan earthquake negatively impacted tourism in Sichuan Province, with a negative growth trend. However, the increase in the curve slope also indicates the strong resilience of tourism in Sichuan Province in the post-disaster recovery stage.

2.14. Analysis: Resistance and Resilience from the Perspective of Regional Resilience

Assuming that the Wenchuan earthquake is a “reverse policy” that inhibits tourism development, the synthetic control method was used to analyze the negative impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on Sichuan Province’s tourism and its development during the post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. It has caused huge losses to tourism in Sichuan Province. After 2008, the total synthetic revenue can be understood as the level that should have been reached without the Wenchuan earthquake. Figure 1 demonstrates that the loss caused by the Wenchuan earthquake to Sichuan Province’s tourism is the area of OAB. In 2012, the actual value of the total revenue reached and exceeded the level as if the Wenchuan earthquake had not occurred in Table 2. At this time, the difference between the synthetic and the actual tourism revenue in Sichuan Province is the loss caused by the Wenchuan earthquake to Sichuan Province tourism. As shown in Table 2, the total loss is roughly CNY 87.298 billion. Compared to the direct economic loss of CNY 46.592 billion in the final assessment report of Sichuan, the earthquake’s impact is significantly higher than expected or previously reported.

In 2009, the total revenue from tourism in Sichuan Province exceeded the pre-earthquake level. Therefore, generally, the public opinion is that the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake on the tourism industry has ceased, and tourism development has returned to the pre-earthquake level. However, according to the calculation of the synthetic control method, the window period for the Wenchuan earthquake to have an impact on the total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province should be the time when the accumulated total tourism revenue for many years after the earthquake is greater than or equals the synthetic value. Figure 1 illustrates that when the area of OMN is greater than or equal to the area of OAB, the time node stands for the end of the Wenchuan earthquake impact period. As shown in Table 2, from 2008 to 2014, the cumulative value of the actual total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province was CNY 1,894.886 billion more than the cumulative value of the synthetic total tourism revenue, which was CNY 1,840.681 billion, and the difference was CNY 54.205 billion. This demonstrates that seven years after the post-disaster industrial recovery and reconstruction, tourism in Sichuan Province reached the level it should have been if the Wenchuan earthquake did not occur. Therefore, the impact period of the Wenchuan earthquake was 2008–2014, a total of seven years.

According to the regional resilience measure of Martin et al. (2016) [34], the AB segment in Figure A2 signifies the recession process, and BN and AM indicate the original new growth paths, respectively.

Figure 1 shows that since 2008, tourism i Sichuan Province has developed at a higher rate, and the gap between the synthetic and real Sichuan Province has gone from negative to positive. From the longer-term data, tourism in Sichuan Province has strengthened consecutively from 2008 to 2019. In 2018, with total tourism revenue exceeding the trillion-yuan mark for the first time, reaching CNY 1,011.275 billion, making it one of five provinces reaching a trillion dollars in tourism in the country.

3. Results

How Can Policies Improve Destination Resilience?

Why did the recessionary period (segment AB) last only a year? Why does the evolution of total tourism revenue in Sichuan Province change with an upward path (AM segment) instead of the original path (BN segment) or a downward path?

First, the theory of RER provides a basic framework for improving tourism resilience. That is, “economic structure, labor market, financial market, behavioral psychology, and policy systems” and other perspectives can be used to explore ways to improve resilience [34]. Second, the “dark tourism” theory posits that disasters have the function of “cultivating new opportunities in crisis,” Exogenous shocks can create diversification of destination tourism markets and products. For example, Wright & Sharpley found that the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, did not lead to major losses in the local tourism industry [27]. On the contrary, tourists were fascinated by the horror of the annihilated city.

Additionally, based on empirical research at the micro-level, some scholars have discovered that “risk communication, marketing, management planning or future crisis preparation, destination image and reputation restoration, and post-disaster tourist behavior” will all affect post-disaster tourism recovery and resilience. Economies in the Asia-Pacific region have restructured their models in the face of shocks, demonstrating a high degree of robustness and resilience. Supportive policies are crucial for protecting the regional economy against crises and improving the resilience of tourism destinations.

The Plan for Tourism Recovery and Reconstruction after the Wenchuan earthquake (hereinafter referred to as “The Plan”), was issued to comprehensively assess the vulnerability and damage to tourism in the worst-hit areas and the post-disaster tourism recovery and reconstruction direction. The Plan considers the industrial development of the disaster area as the major task, and, therefore, the Dalongmen Mountain Tourism Pilot Zone was reconstructed, and the tourism resources, attractions, towns, villages, and passages in the area were coordinated to form industrial clusters in an agglomeration effect. With the concept of sustainable development, the spatial layout of post-disaster tourism restoration and reconstruction highlights the balance between ecology, regional characteristics, and tourism development, and the balance between ecology, regional characteristics, and tourism development. Based on the differentiated topography, the Dalongmen Mountain Tourism Pilot Zone includes plans to build three tourism industries—rural tourism, mountain tourism, and scientific research and exploration. Four tourism economic zones, including the Cultural Tourism Zone of Qiang Nationality, the Longmen Mountain Leisure Tourism Zone, the Three Kingdoms Cultural Tourism Zone, and the Giant Panda International Tourism Zone, will be built. Through the overall planning of the route construction, six boutique and nine-loop tourism routes will be promoted. To restore the productive capacity and market demand of the destination tourism industry, the project-based “national investment and social investment” is engaged in restoring and reconstructing tourist passages and attractions. The contents are shown in

Table 3. Post-earthquake tourism reconstruction projects in Sichuan Province.

Type of Impact	The Specific Type	Construction of Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Projects
Tourism production capacity	Tourism landscape	Restoration and reconstruction projects The projects include restoration and reconstruction projects of World Heritage Sites, restoration and reconstruction of scenic spots in the Three Kingdoms Cultural Tourism Area, Cultural, and Ecological Tourism Areas of Qiang Nationality, Ancient Tea-Horse Road Project and Restoration, and Reconstruction Project for Leisure in Longmen Mountain. 2. New projects after the disaster The Wenchuan earthquake site protection and memorial planning and construction project.
	Tourist recommendation enterprises, tourist villages, and tourist towns	Tourist towns: Tourist towns restoration and reconstruction projects The restoration and reconstruction of tourist towns should highlight the tourist image and cultural characteristics of the towns, improve the tourist functions and public service facilities of the towns, restore and upgrade the hotels and other reception facilities in the towns, and create personalized leisure spaces featuring with regional cultural characteristics, such as Dujiangyan district of Chengdu. 2. Tourism Village: Rural tourism safety project To select the most suitable town and villages for the development of rural tourism, with the focus on restoring and rebuilding the recommended facilities and production capacity of rural tourism. Planning and layout of tourism villages should be unified to improve the quality of tourism products, such as building the Qingcheng Mountain-Dujiangyan-Pengzhou rural tourism belt. 3. Tourism enterprises: To implement promising financial and fiscal stimulus policies To implement preferential fiscal and tax policies for tourism enterprises in the disaster-hit areas to give full play to the supportive and guiding role of public policies for the recovery and reconstruction of the tourism industry and accelerate the recovery and revitalization of the tourism industry.
	Tourism industry departments and organizations	Restoration and reconstruction of social management facilities Restoration and reconstruction of the premises of party organs and government at all levels and relevant departments
	Tourist Access Facilities	Restore and rebuild tourist corridors To restore and rebuild the tourism access facilities in the severely affected areas, including the extension of Jiuhuang Airport. To redesign the nine-loop travel routine and upgrade the northern travel routine of Jiuzhaigou, the construction of the German-Afghanistan express road, and the construction of Chengdu S106 Western Sichuan Province tourism routine and other channels. 2. To open a themed boutique travel routine Based on the tourism channel, nine boutique travel routes have been opened (the northern route of Jiuzhaigou), including the cultural corridor of Qiang Nationality, the Wenchuan earthquake site, the giant panda habitat route, the Three Kingdoms culture route, and the red culture route.
Tourism market demand	Tourism safety Image	Project of tourism safety emergency rescue system construction After three years of hard work, a tourism emergency rescue system is expected to be initially established, mainly relying on national investment to build a tourism safety warning system, a mountain tourism emergency rescue system, and a medical network to establish and enhance the new image of Sichuan Province and inbound tourism. 2. To promote the tourism image of Sichuan Province through marketing In the second half of 2008, the activity of “Sichuan People Visiting Sichuan” was launched. Since 2009, rural tourism and tourist attractions in disaster-stricken areas have gradually improved. Since 2010, Sichuan Province tourism has been fully restored, reshaping the perfect image of “Sichuan for the world, the hometown of pandas”.
	Tourist Market Confidence	To carry out tourism market research and evaluation projects To invite experts or professional companies to evaluate the Sichuan Province tourism source market and tourism services. 2. Tourism confidence and image restoration project To carry out a special press conference on Sichuan Province tourism and a TV program of tourism safety interviews. To invite mainstream media and travel agents to visit Sichuan Province for artistic inspiration. To use domestic and overseas websites for positive publicity. 3. To promote marketing of travel routes To launch a series of boutique travel routes, distribute multilingual promotional materials to the public, hold various tourism promoting activities, and carry out “Sichuan people travel to Sichuan” activities. 4. To carry out resource integration and development projects To incorporate Sichuan Province boutique travel routes into higher-level projects. Hold various annual conferences and activities and perform large-scale disaster relief and charity performances. To apply for world cultural heritage forums and counterpart support projects.

Source: Planning for Tourism Reconstruction after the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan Province [42] (http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2008-09/24/content_6121.htm, accessed on 5 March 2023).

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How can public policies improve tourism resilience? The above analysis demonstrates that tourism crisis management policies can be divided into response and post-disaster recovery policies. Unlike the market orientation of recovery and reconstruction in European and North American countries, the Wenchuan earthquake process reflects the strong national power, which is manifested in intensive policy issuance and the government’s overall planning of post-disaster recovery strategies. The post-earthquake recovery policies in Wenchuan were refined over time and implemented as a “national investment + social investment” project system and closely followed by a consistent “tourism promotion”. After 2008, the continuous increase in the total tourism revenue of Sichuan Province and the remarkable changes in Wenchuan, Beichuan, and other places demonstrated the value and great potential of governance and policies in improving tourism resilience.

4. Discussion

Analyzing the Wenchuan earthquake’s impact on tourism in Sichuan Province, this study discusses the impact of earthquakes on tourism destinations and the post-disaster recovery process of tourism destinations from the regional resilience perspective and delves into policies’s role in the process of tourism resilience enhancement.

The RER theory based on spatial and holistic perspectives effectively fits the destination resilience of tourism and provides a new perspective and method for destination resilience research. Based on the literature review, the vulnerability of tourism in Sichuan Province and the actual impact of the earthquake on regional tourism were further explored. The process of recession (resistance) and recovery (resilience) of tourism in Sichuan Province in the face of earthquakes were estimated by counterfactual methods. The results demonstrated that the impact of the earthquake on the tourism industry far exceeds public estimation, but the counterfactual results also indicate that the tourism industry in Sichuan Province has achieved a new growth path in the process of restoration and reconstruction. The final exploratory study indicates that analyzing national forces and policy planning helps account for earthquakes potentially leading to new growth paths for regional tourism. This also demonstrates that research on tourism resilience from the regional resilience perspective can generate new ideas. Additionally, policy factors are important in improving tourism resilience in the Chinese context.

5. Conclusions

5.1. Theoretical Significance

The results show that the total revenue loss of Sichuan tourism industry brought by Wenchuan earthquake is 87.298 billion yuan, and the post-disaster recovery window period is 7 years (2008–2014). After the earthquake, the industrial policy measures taken have effectively improved the resilience of Sichuan’s tourism industry, making it reach the level that it would have been before the earthquake and assuming that there had been no earthquake, thus proving that China’s policies have an important impact on the resilience of tourist destinations.

First, this study proposes a tourism resilience analysis framework from the perspective of RER, using Sichuan, China, as an example. At the micro level, it complements the existing researches on the resilience and sustainable development of the tourism industry, and at the macro level, it enricfies the content of the sustainable development theory that government policies promote the post-disaster reconstruction and recovery of tourism destinations. From a theoretical point of view, based on a holistic and comprehensive perspectives, the study provides a scientific basis for the sustainable development of tourist destinations.

Second, the RER analysis method can integrate the time process, the intensity and degree of impact, and regional differences of the impact of crisis events on the regional tourism system, which provides a mechanism for disaster impact-oriented tourism resilience research. It is also helpful to theoretically clarify and expound on the resilience of tourism destinations and promote the transformation of tourism crisis management from retrospection and evaluation research to resilience research.

Third, a long-standing debate exists in the tourism sector on whether policies can reinforce tourism resilience. Supporters believe that policy has improved tourism resilience as the core variable determining the tourism industry’s post-disaster recovery. This study indicates that public policies can improve tourism resilience, and the specific mechanism relies on the concept of a tourist-oriented crisis response, the concentration of industrial resources in the process of restoration and reconstruction, and macro-oriented strategies. Planning and realizing the project-based operation mode of “state + market” provide a preliminary answer to the theoretical question of whether policies can improve resilience in the Chinese context.

5.2. Policy Significance

Based on Sichuan Province’s experience encountering tourism crises and post-disaster reconstruction, this study has the following policy implications. The impact of earthquakes on regional tourism depends on the destination’s vulnerability. Therefore, managers need to regularly assess the destination’s exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability and find and solve problems in time. Second, the earthquake’s impact on the destination destroys tourism production capacity and market demand. Therefore, managers should consider the two threats in the crisis response stage, particularly the impact of disasters on market demand, which often demands a longer recovery process. Finally, in the recovery and reconstruction stage, managers need to consider the two sides of policy tools and learn from the experience of Sichuan Province, which demonstrates that policies can be the dominant force in coordinating the overall situation. Ideally, a more flexible “state + market + society” cooperative governance model should be adopted.

5.3. Limitations and Future Research

This study has two main limitations. First, tourism resilience from a regional perspective emphasizes integrity and ignores the detailed characteristics of individual destinations. Second, different types of shocks have different impacts on destinations, but this study only considers the response model of earthquakes. Thus, the external validity is, to some extent, limited. With the frequent occurrence of natural disasters in recent years, exploring the impact of different risk events, including public emergencies, on the tourism industry is particularly necessary. Therefore, we also call for further examination of tourism resilience in different crises to enrich the existing work.