Low-carbon cities and tourism specialization: Unraveling the impact of urban sustainability on regional tourism development

This paper employs the difference-in-differences analysis method to probe into the impact of low-carbon city construction on tourism specialization. Results indicate that it significantly enhances tourism specialization via industrial restructuring and ecological governance. Low-carbon cities only positively impact tourism specialization in central cities, while the impact is not significant in eastern and western cities. Furthermore, low-carbon city construction only significantly positively impacts tourism specialization at low administrative levels, non-ETS pilot cities, and non-resource-based cities. Besides, economic development and human capital significantly and negatively moderate the positive influence on tourism specialization, while environmental quality positively moderates this positive effect. These findings highlight tourism’s response to low-carbon transition, offering insights for sustainable tourism and regional development.