Data Sheet 1_Tourism transition and green productivity in China's ethnic minority regions: non-linear evidence on the digital economy's dual environmental role.zip

Drawing on Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) theory and the destination evolution literature, this study examines the nonlinear relationship between tourism expansion and green total factor productivity (GTFP). Particular attention is given to the moderating role of the digital economy, which may amplify or offset the environmental effects of tourism.</p>Methods<p>We construct a panel dataset of 28 prefecture-level cities in China's Guangxi-Yunnan-Guizhou ethnic minority region over the period 2013–2024.

To capture potential nonlinearities, we employ a fixed-effects quadratic regression model, complemented by non-parametric machine learning (XGBoost-SHAP) for robustness and a heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable approach to address endogeneity.</p>Results<p>Our analysis reveals a clear U-shaped pattern: in the early stages, tourism expansion suppresses GTFP through infrastructure-driven environmental degradation—including construction waste, dust emissions, and land-use change—a mechanism we term “ecological crowding.” Beyond a distinct developmental threshold, however, agglomeration economies and technology diffusion generate net environmental gains via a technology compensation effect.