入境旅游免签政策的游客吸引效应及其异质性

本文以中国首个入境旅游免签试点政策为准自然实验,以1996-2016年53个地级市为研究样本,采用双重差分法评估了入境旅游免签政策对入境旅游人数的影响,并进行一系列稳健性检验,最后从客源地异质性和政策调整效应等维度做了进一步分析。研究发现：①入境旅游免签政策的实施显著地促进了入境旅游人数增长;②入境旅游免签政策对欧洲国家的政策效果最好,对亚洲国家和大洋洲国家有显著的正向影响,而对北美洲国家无显著作用;③2010年入境旅游免签政策的调整未能显著吸引入境游客。

ANALYSIS ON THE ATTRACTION EFFECT AND HETEROGENEITY OF VISA-FREE POLICY FOR INBOUND TOURISTS

In 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping made it clear that "timely summary of the implementation of the visa-free policy for foreigners from 59 countries" when he personally planned a free trade port with Chinese characteristics, but it is rare for scientific and quantitative assessment of the effect of visa-free policy for inbound tourism in China. Therefore this paper takes the China's first travel visa-free entry policy as the research object, and takes 53 cities in 1996-2016 panel data as the research sample. The paper adopts Difference-in-Difference model to assess of the inbound tourism visa-free policy influence on the number of inbound tourism; then conducts a series of robustness tests by the Difference-in-Difference recognition criteria, the placebo, PSM-DID and eliminate interference policy; finally makes further analyses from the dimensions of the heterogeneity of the source of tourists and the effect of policy adjustment. The findings are as follows:Firstly, the implementation of visa-free policy for inbound tourism has significantly promoted the growth of inbound tourists, and has been supported in a series of robustness tests. Secondly, the effect of the visa-free policy for inbound tourism varies significantly from place to place, has the best effect on European countries, has a significant positive impact on Asian countries and Oceania countries, and has no significant effect on North American countries. Thirdly, the changes to the visa-free policy for inbound tourism in 2010 failed to significantly attract inbound tourists. The theoretical and practical significance of this paper are as follows:firstly, this study enriched the research content on the assessment of China's tourism policy, especially to make up for the quantitative assessment of the visa-free policy of inbound tourism; secondly, it provides a reliable empirical basis for further optimizing the visa-free policy for people from 59 countries and expanding the scope of visa-free implementation.