Does PPP Matter to Sustainable Tourism Development? An Analysis of the Spatial Effect of the Tourism PPP Policy in China

Funding and efficiency have always been important factors that restrict the sustainable development of tourism in developing countries. The PPP (Public Private Partnership) is an innovative model for addressing the above problems and is popular in the sustainable development of tourism around the world. The performance evaluation of tourism PPP is a key step towards promoting the PPP policy and sustainable development. In particular, the analysis of spatial effects that are easily overlooked will help to improve the measure of PPP performance. Based on tourism PPP projects in the PPP database of the Ministry of Finance in China, this paper analyses the spatial patterns and development characteristics of tourism PPP, identifies and measures the impact factors of tourism PPP by virtue of the GeoDetector method, and analyzes the function of PPP in tourism development and governance. The research shows that there are significant spatial disparities in the tourism PPP projects. Although tourism PPP is the result of interactions between multiple factors, what plays a critical role is the financial factor. PPP acts as a policy driver in tourism development in China. It corrects spatial mismatch between tourism resources and factors, eliminates space barriers and promotes the realization of spatial justice of tourism development. This study not only contributes to the improvement of China's PPP policy, but also has implications for PPP policies in other developing countries.