**1. Introduction**

China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and its low-carbon development faces huge challenges. In September 2020, China proposed the climate goal of "carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2060" for the first time at the UN General Assembly. The Central Economic Work Conference in December 2020, the Government Work Report in March 2021, and the 14th Five-Year Plan have repeatedly reaffirmed this climate goal.

Tourism has become one of the major sources of global climate change [1]. The carbon emission of tourism accounts for 5% of the total global carbon emission, and the greenhouse effect formed by the carbon emission of tourism accounts for about 14% of the total global effect. By 2035, tourism's carbon emissions are expected to increase by 152%, and its contribution to the greenhouse effect is expected to increase by 188% [2]. In response to this problem, more attention should be given to key issues such as sustainability and adaptation to climate change [3]. Tourism should strive to reduce carbon emissions and improve the

**Citation:** Li, S.; Cheng, Z.; Tong, Y.; He, B. The Interaction Mechanism of Tourism Carbon Emission Efficiency and Tourism Economy High-Quality Development in the Yellow River Basin. *Energies* **2022**, *15*, 6975. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196975

Academic Editor: Attilio Converti

Received: 29 August 2022 Accepted: 20 September 2022 Published: 23 September 2022

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efficiency of tourism's carbon emissions, and some actions based on anticipatory action planning are needed in the tourism sector [4]. The availability and sharing of knowledge and information related to tourism's carbon emissions is a basic requirement for the successful planning of the tourism sector regarding this phenomenon [5].

Global tourist arrivals are expected to maintain an annual growth rate of 3.3% between 2010 and 2030 to reach 1.8 billion arrivals [6], generating rapid economic growth for the tourism industry as well as huge challenges. As a pillar industry of China's national economy, the economic development of tourism is also an important issue that requires attention. The China Tourism Economy Blue Book (No. 13) put forward the tourism economy's high-quality development. The development of the tourism economy is closely related to social, economic, and ecological environments [7,8]. Studies have shown that, with the passage of time, tourism consumption and total tourism emissions are roughly 2:1 in direct proportion [9]. Therefore, the next step is to realize how "ecological benefits" and "economic benefits" go hand in hand. It is important to study the interaction mechanism between tourism's carbon emission efficiency and the tourism economy. It helps to realize low-carbon tourism and the high-quality development of tourism.

The Yellow River Basin is an important economic belt and ecological barrier in China. The general secretary's speech in 2019 at the Symposium on Ecological Protection and High-quality Development in the Yellow River Basin, as well as the proposal made at the 6th Meeting of the Financial and Economic Commission of the CPC Central Committee in 2020 to make overall planning and coordinated progress based on the whole Basin and the ecosystem, all illustrate the importance of achieving a win-win situation between economic development and environmental protection in the Yellow River Basin. Therefore, this paper analyzed tourism's carbon emission efficiency (TCEE) and the tourism economy's high-quality development (TEHQD) in nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2019. Then, we explored the symbiotic interaction mechanism between TCEE and TEHQD. This is part of the tourism industry's active response to climate change. It provides a basis for the tourism economy's high-quality development, and it also provides ideas and paths for the realization of low-carbon tourism and high-quality economic development in the Yellow River Basin.

There are three main contributions of this paper. Firstly, from a theoretical perspective, this study is conducive to deepening the research on low-carbon tourism, exploring the tourism economy's high-quality development (TEHQD) from a low-carbon perspective, improving the research on the relationship between tourism's carbon emission efficiency (TCEE) and the tourism economy from the symbiotic perspective, enriching the research framework of the interaction mechanism. Secondly, this study adapted to the goal of "Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutral" and the requirements of the tourism economy's highquality development. Research on the carbon emission efficiency of tourism can guide the development of tourism to better assume corresponding responsibilities for carbon reduction. The evaluation system for the tourism economy's high-quality development (TEHQD) was established, which can help to evaluate the development level of the tourism economy comprehensively and provide ideas for the tourism economy's high-quality development. Thirdly, this study contributes to the realization of the Ecological Protection and High-quality Development strategy in the Yellow River Basin. Taking the nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin as the study area, the study of tourism's carbon emission efficiency (TCEE) was used to connect with ecological protection, and the study of the tourism economy's high-quality development was used to correspond with a high-quality development strategy, which can not only promote the development of the two but also contribute to the integration of the two.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The second part reviews the relevant literature of this paper. The third part introduces the model, the data source, the specific evaluation index system, and the formula. The fourth part is the empirical analysis of this paper, including the evaluation of TCEE, the evaluation of TEHQD, the evaluation of the symbiosis between TCEE and TEHQD, and the construction of the symbiosis interaction mechanism between TCEE and TEHQD. Following that, the research conclusion, the countermeasure suggestion, the shortage, and the prospect are given in the fifth part.

#### **2. Literature Review**

Tourism's carbon emission efficiency (TCEE) refers to tourism's ecological efficiency based on carbon emissions from the perspective of low carbon, which is used to observe the value that can be achieved by the cost of carbon emissions. At present, research on tourism's ecological efficiency has covered concept [10], mechanism analysis [11], countermeasures and suggestions [12], model building [13,14], and efficiency measurement [15,16]. In terms of the specific content of the research, it mainly includes research on the input and output effect of tourism resources. For example, Jiang (2022) took tourism's CO2 emission efficiency as undesired output, established an index system based on the input and output of tourism's CO2 emission efficiency, and measured the tourism CO2 emission efficiency of Chinese provinces [17]. The application of tourism's ecological efficiency to destination management, as well as the research on energy consumption and carbon emission intensity generated in the process of tourism are also receiving attention. Reilly (2010) studies have shown that tourism traffic is the most important part of energy consumption, and promoting the efficiency of transportation energy will help to enhance the efficiency of tourism ecology [18]. From the perspective of research methods, the current evaluation of tourism's ecological efficiency mostly adopts the single ratio method [19], carbon footprint model [20], life cycle assessment [21], carrying capacity of the low-carbon tourism environment model [22], DEA model [23], and SBM-DEA model [24]. Some researchers who use the single ratio method to measure tourism's carbon emission efficiency usually choose the two indexes of tourism's carbon emissions and tourism's income for accounting [25]. However, most researchers choose to use the "input-output" index and calculate the tourism carbon emission efficiency by establishing a model. From the perspective of the "input" index, it mainly focuses on capital input, labor input, resource input, and energy input [24]. From the perspective of "output" indicators, desirable output indicators such as tourism's income and number of tourists are mainly used [26]. In terms of influencing factors, urbanization, economic development level, government regulation, and tourism development level have an impact on tourism's ecological efficiency [27]. Other researchers analyzed the impact of foreign direct investment [28] and technology embedding [29] on tourism eco-efficiency. It can be seen that, at present, research on the influencing factors of tourism's carbon emission efficiency are mostly focused on the single level of economy, industry, and technology, while the influencing factors of humanities, society, and environment are relatively rare. the exploration of multi-faceted influencing factors has not yet received attention. Researchers mostly use exponential decomposition [24], the regression model [28], or the spatial econometric model [24] to study the influencing factors and analyze the linear relationship between each influencing factor and tourism's ecological efficiency, but they rarely consider the dynamic relationship and interaction mechanism between each influencing factor and tourism's ecological efficiency.

Tourism development is closely related to economy, culture, and ecological environment [30]. With China's requirements of high-quality development, the tourism economy's high-quality development (TEHQD) has also entered the horizon of researchers. Research on the influencing factors of the development quality of the tourism economy has always been the focus of scholars [31]. It has been found that resource conservation, ecological environmental protection, and sustainable development are the important goals of tourism's economic development and the important content of quality improvement [32]. Efficiency improvement, structural optimization, and environmental coordination are the core contents and important ways to promote the development of the tourism economy [33]. Scientific and reasonable arrangements should be made to maximize the adjustment of tourism's resource development and ecological environment protection to improve the sustainable development capacity of the tourism economy [34].

The relationship between the development of the tourism economy and other factors has always been an important issue, such as the relationship between carbon emissions and international tourism growth [35], between tourism investment and energy innovation on carbon dioxide emissions [36], between tourism economy and regional integration [37], and between tourism economic development and government policy [38,39]. With the development of tourism and the improvement of the quality requirements of the tourism economy, the relationship between tourism and the ecological environment is increasingly concerned. Tourism development not only brings economic benefits to the local area, but it also increases the pressure on the local ecological environment [40]. Therefore, it is necessary to take certain measures to promote the coordination between tourism and the environment to realize the sustainable development of tourism [41]. In terms of research content, studies on the tourism economy and ecological environment mainly include their interaction [42], their coupling and coordinated development evaluation [43], influencing factors [44], policies and paths to promote their joint development [45], tourism's ecological footprint measurement [46,47], tourism's ecological efficiency [24], tourism's environmental capacity [48,49], and tourism's ecological security [50]. From the perspective of research methods, in addition to macro qualitative description, spatial data analysis [24], and econometric analysis [28], the coupled coordination model is the most common quantitative study [51].

To sum up, the evaluation of tourism's efficiency from the perspective of ecology is the basis and premise for the realization of the high-quality and sustainable development of tourism, when low carbon tourism has become the goal and mode of tourism development. However, the current research on tourism's carbon emission efficiency usually focuses on the form of tourism's ecological efficiency and less directly considers the more detailed tourism carbon emission efficiency. In the calculation of tourism's carbon emission efficiency, the single ratio method is mainly used, and the research method needs to be expanded urgently. The construction of the "input-output" evaluation index of tourism's carbon emission efficiency rarely considers the undesired output. The few evaluation systems that include an undesired output rarely take tourism's carbon emissions as a specific index. The influencing factors of tourism's carbon efficiency focus on a single aspect, such as economy, industry, technology, society, and environment factors, and multifaceted influence factors are uncommon. Research on the relationship between various influencing factors and tourism's ecological efficiency that gives priority to a linear relationship between the interaction mechanism and dynamic relationship is relatively lacking. The consideration of the development of the tourism economy is mainly based on a single factor, such as industry or technology, and lacks the comprehensive consideration of the tourism economy's high-quality development. Studies on the relationship between the tourism economy and other factors are mainly about social and industrial factors; the relationship between the tourism economy and the ecological environment needs more attention. Most of the studies on tourism's economic development related to the ecological environment are focused on the environment of the whole society, and few of them are detailed towards tourism or even tourism's carbon emission efficiency. The research methods are mainly coupled and coordinated, while other methods should be applied.

#### **3. Research Methods and Data Sources**

*3.1. Modeling and Data Sources*
