Can ecotourism development promote residents’ environmental concern: a quasi-natural experiment from China

ABSTRACTDestination residents’ environmental concern (REC) is a pivotal force in promoting sustainable destination development. However, empirical evidence on how ecotourism development affects REC is scarce within the framework of tourism economics. Based on a quasi-natural experiment of China’s National Ecotourism Demonstration Area (CNEDA) designation, we fill this gap using multi-source data of 282 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019. The evidence indicates that CNEDA designation significantly promotes destination REC and passes the robustness tests, but this effect is short-term. The positive impact is amplified in tourism-dependent cities. The impact of ecotourism development on REC is structurally different, favouring promote residents’ ecological values and environmental cognitions over environmental behavioural intention. Relevant policy implications are also provided.KEYWORDS: China’s National Ecotourism Demonstration Areaecotourismenvironment concernquasi-natural experimentresident Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe datasets are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 21BJY194].