# Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining: Protection and Development of World Heritage Sites

Authors: Bie-Yu Lin; Shi-Xiao Wang
Journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering
 (2022)

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## Abstract

The production of services and goods needs consumption of available material and energy. An economy often focuses on sources of high-quality material/energy first produced by nature for increasing growth. World heritages sites (WHSs) have become major tourist attractions that promote economic development for developing countries. The increased number of tourists has thus brought about threats to ecological environment. Scholars stress that it should be sustainable or “green growth” since it comes to economic growth currently. The aim of this research is to establish a sustainable development model for WHSs to empirically investigate the dilemma between economic development and ecological protection with particular emphasis on strategies that promote the sustainability. The study took China’s 45 WHSs as samples and constructed a two-stage sustainable development model to analyze the trade-off between economic development and ecological protection. The dynamic network slacks-based measure was employed for dynamic performance evaluation for the period 2013-2019. The results suggest that a strong balance between economic development and ecological protection would be essential for sustainability. Spearman’s rank correlation was also used to verify that there are no conflicts between the two processes. In addition, this study demonstrates that an effective government policy covering regulations of economic development and ecological protection can positively influence sustainable development. The governments are suggested to improve the section that the WHS performs inefficient. Involvement of balanceable sustainable development for WHSs needs necessary cooperation during concerned institutions, practitioners, and communities. The WHSs are recommended to receive strict standard of supervision, management, and control.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

Natural environment occupies an important position in promoting economic development by providing raw materials and resources for production of services and goods. Natural resources are vital for securing economic growth and development. The production of services and goods needs consumption of available material and energy. The relationship between environment and economic growth is contradictory, and unavoidable conflict exists between them. This question remains unclear in terms of natural resources such as World Heritages, which societies have been inducted to consider that economic growth is associated with pollutant emission growth and resource consumption.World Heritage Sites (WHSs) are landmarks singled out for their notable scientific, historical, and cultural forms as verified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) [1]. They continually serve as major attractions for tourist arrivals. Their consumption, which includes accommodations, food, entertainment, and shopping, brings substantial benefits to local residents in developing countries [2]. Tourism’ contribution to developing countries’ GDP reached 4.24% in 2015, becoming an important driving force for economic growth [3]. These sites are thus employed as an approach for economic recovery through tourism owing to their remarkable economic impact on native industries [4].There are 1,052 WHSs situated in 165 locations, and 1645 tentative lists have been submitted to the UNESCO in 2018. In China, there are 52 World Heritage Sites to date, ranking it second in the world [5]. These sites consist of China’s most valuable tourism resources. For example, Zhangjiaje National Forest Park is famous for the “Southern Sky Column,” which served as inspiration for the Hallelujah Mountains in the film Avatar [6]. The Great Wall, regarded as one of the Eight Wonders of the World, has become a main attraction for world tourists [7]. The Mogao Caves in the northwest of China are famous for their unrivaled historical value as evidence of the Buddhist art [8]. These sites afford a mass of picturesque materials describing various aspects of China’s culture, economics, arts, and ancient politics.Yet, everything is a double-edged sword. The increasing number of tourists has caused negative impacts on the ecological environment [9]. Heritage sites worldwide have been confronted with various threats, including industrialization, tourism, social chaos, and urbanization [10]. At present, 54 sites in the world are in peril of degradation, making sustainable development extremely urgent [11]. The sustainable development is proposed as an equitable balance between development and protection, so that WHSs are protected by proper activities that promote the economic development [12]. Heritage sites’ sustainable development strengthens two dimensions: ecological protection and economic development. Ecological conservation performs through protecting sites with outstanding culture or natural value. These sites contain geodiversity, exceptional biodiversity, and other exceptional natural features, which are critical for human well-being. Economic development favors a human-centered economy, making equity compatible and economic growth measured by income-generating activities [13]. Sustainable development becomes an urgent issue for developing economies. For example, to ensure WHSs’ sustainable development, the Chinese government has promoted a tourist attraction rating system to score the quality of the attraction since 2007 [14]. Category AAAAA (5A) represents highest level that is granted to the most famous sites in China for safety, convenience, sanitation, shopping, and transportation. Some of the heritage sites are recorded on the 5A list. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the 5A evaluation system has not been confirmed.This study used China’s 45 WHSs as samples and established a sustainable development model to study their sustainable development. The sustainable development was divided into two processes: ecological protection and economic development. DEA method with dynamic network slacks-based measure (SBM) that is widely employed to handle multiple input and output variables of multidivision was used for performance evaluation. The trade-off relationship between the two processes was verified. Finally, this study examined whether an effective government policy could improve ecological and economic efficiency.


## 2. Literature Review

WHSs are sorted as geographical or historical place markers in the world and then identified as unique in cultural or physical significance [14]. These sites represent humans’ prominent footprints along with acts of indisputable accomplishment of humanity [15]. WHSs are often classified landmarks unique with respects to geographically or historically identifiable places. They indicate a nation’s natural or cultural fortune. Therefore, increasing countries begin to make effort to apply for these distinctions.


### 2.1. WHSs and Economic Development

WHSs tourism occupies an important role in many countries’ economy [16, 17]. Arezki et al. [18] analyzed if WHS is a viable strategy for development. The growth of 1.0% in tourism led to almost 0.4% in extra increase in the employment. Cassel and Pashkevich [19] studied demand for WHSs tourist with specific attentions to gain in travelers’ appreciations of the indigenous culture. The study proposed that tourists’ motivation would be promoted by the art of exotic sculpture in the culture WHSs. Su and Lin [20] researched WHSs’ impact on native tourism and presented the positive relationship between WHSs and tourists. Cuccia et al. [21] examined the position of WHSs in reinforcement of tourism destination by using Italia as a case study. They demonstrated that Italia’s tourism could be improved by cultural and environmental endowments that are embodied in local WHSs.WHSs could promote local economic growth through boosting tourism [22]. Trinh and Ryan [23] analyzed innovation effect of WHS tourism at local industries that took advantages of WHSs’ brands to exploit the tourism market of Sweden. The tourism innovation was demonstrated to get facilitated by developing new products and marketing strategies. Deng and Ma [24] examined the indirect and direct impacts of tourist on industrial upgrading of China’s 4 representative tourist cities from 2000 to 2011. The research proposed that facilities investment and human capital are critical transfer avenues, through which the tourist industry can exert positive impact on industrial upgrading.Developing countries’ tourism boosted by WHSs helps to generate income, provide jobs, promote cross-cultural awareness, and diversify economy. Tourism gradually becomes a main industry in their native economy [25]. Kenya’s ecotourism and conventional market is attributed to its long-term established tourist sector, which has accounted for 3.57 percent of the country’s GDP in 2016. Increased tourists have created a variety of operations, from food suppliers, adventure sports providers, and hotels [26]. The tourism enables Egypt that is poor in material wealth but rich in heritage, culture, and history to employ its unique characteristics as an income-generating advantage. Tourism industry encourages local development of infrastructure that promotes host communities, such as sports centers, health care facilities, and roads to foreign visitors [27].Some studies present that the WHSs are an increasingly important driving force in China’s economic growth [28]. The income from China’s tourism industry has increased rapidly on average 22.3% annually since 2010. Tourism added approximately $625.3 billion to the country’s economy. Regions that own heritage sites saw an increase of 12.7% in gross domestic product (GDP) [29]. Moreover, WHSs push industrial upgrading by accelerating tourism development. Since 2015, the added value of China’s tourism industry reached $2,742 billion, accounting for 5.1% of its GDP. The rapid growth in tourism stimulates development in transportation, catering, and hospitality. China’s tourism brought about 65.09 million jobs in 2015, accounting for 8.41% of the country’s total employment. The bountiful natural resources and valuable culture embodied in the sites have attracted investments from local enterprises [2, 30].


### 2.2. WHSs and Ecological Disruption

The aim of including sites into WHSs is to protect the global wealth for the future generation. However, WHSs are often used as a marketing advertising campaign for local tourism to increase destinations’ global popularity to attract many visitors [31]. Thus, WHSs’ ecological environments face threats [32, 33]. Increasing WHSs are considered in jeopardy and recorded in the List of WHSs in Danger [26, 34].Excessive exploitation of heritage sites has engendered subsequent problems [35, 36]. Heritage sites are vulnerable to the impact of various human endeavors as well as ecological change. The sites are often subjected to defacement. For example, wild animals, soil, and vegetation are influenced by camping activity in the Mount Wutai in China [37]. Meanwhile, the opening of karst caves to tourists has impeded conservation effects in Huanglong Cave and Furong Cave, the most outstanding examples of karst caves in China’s natural and cultural heritage sites [38]. The influence of tourism on the ecological environment is extremely significant, especially with increasing tourist arrivals into small areas.The disruption of WHSs is also reflected in water and lake contamination and travertine degradation [39, 40]. Water pollution becomes a severe problem in mountainous areas. The most remarkable change is the permanently increasing heavy metals in water: massive development of infrastructure facilities, such as service facilities, railways, airports, and roads, has increased construction waste in lakes [41, 42].


### 2.3. Sustainable Development and Performance Analysis

The concept of sustainable development refers to a principle to satisfy the goal of human development [43] while keeping the ability of providing ecosystem services and natural resource that a country relies on [44]. Currently, its focus has been shifted to environmental protection, social development, and economic development for future generations. The environment sustainability needs the society to design human activity to satisfy their needs when protecting the life support system of the earth [45]. Therefore, sustainable development involves the improvement in the quality of human life and makes decrease in natural resource consumption. Clean water, affordable energy, innovation and infrastructure, economic growth, industry, sustainable communities, peace, and good health and well-being are summarized as sustainable development’s main goals [46].Scholars proposed sustainable development mode to solve dilemma between economic development and ecological protection for WHSs. Sustainable development of WHSs is proposed to be environment sustainability that includes economic development through integrating the protection system [47]. This development mode denotes an equitable balance about economic development and ecological protection, so it serves as a fundamental principle for both aspects of development [48].The promotion of sustainable development principles during the management of WHSs would improve both ecology and economy while considering the need of local communities [49]. The development pattern stresses protection, use, and development of cultural or natural resources, which provides people and local communities with the social and economic well-being [50]. The protection of WHSs makes critical contributions to the sustainable development. A well-protected heritage can leave richness of natural and cultural resources for the current and future generations. These sites are important assets for economic growth as they bring about investment and provide respectable jobs in tourism industry [51]. Therefore, WHSs contribute to significant economic benefits, such as job creation and revenues from tourism.There are a variety of studies that evaluate economic development and ecological protection of WHSs. However, they fail to evaluate holistic performance by combining the two processes. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is generally employed for performance evaluation for that it readily accommodates multi-input multi-output production technologies [52].For ecological performance, Castro et al. [53] analyzed Italy’s cultural heritage protection. They studied effect of specializations in contract authority on the management efficiency of WHSs’ protection through DEA approach. They found the expertise was occupying an essential role that affected cultural WHSs’ efficiency. Guccio et al. [54] analyzed the influence of government policy on heritage protection [55] that incorporated public spending, tax expenditures, and regulation from an empirical perspective. A variety of factors that influence the protection activities of Sicily’s WHSs from 1993 to 2005 were analyzed by using one-stage DEA method. The results indicated efficiencies were determined by economic and political policies as operational factors did not influence WHSs’ performance.For economic performance, Cuccia et al. [56] explored the influence of cultural WHSs on promoting tourist market. They used cultural heritage sites in Italy from 1995 to 2010 as samples. It was found that the cultural and environmental endowments could specifically influence performance of Italian WHSs for that they generated effective prospect on demand of the tourism market. Yao et al. [57] made the evaluation of low carbon performance in tourist by using DEA method. The study employed Leshan that is a representative natural and cultural heritage in Southwest China as a practical sample to investigate the ecological conservation. Cuccia et al. [58] examined the influence of WHSs on the promoting Italia’s tourist performance for the period 1995-2010. The study examined the effectiveness of local development policy by using a static approach and bootstrap procedure. They demonstrated the cultural and natural endowments within the WHSs could positively influence Italian tourism.WHSs’ sustainable development denotes a balance between economic growth and ecological protection. However, the above studies just studied either economic development or ecological protection, rather than considering both processes and the relationship between them. In addition, they evaluated the performance in a single period, for example, on year. The multiperiod performance was not presented. Therefore, this study employed the dynamic network slacks-based measure (SBM) that proposes a long-term dynamic view for empirical analysis.


## 2.1. WHSs and Economic Development

WHSs tourism occupies an important role in many countries’ economy [16, 17]. Arezki et al. [18] analyzed if WHS is a viable strategy for development. The growth of 1.0% in tourism led to almost 0.4% in extra increase in the employment. Cassel and Pashkevich [19] studied demand for WHSs tourist with specific attentions to gain in travelers’ appreciations of the indigenous culture. The study proposed that tourists’ motivation would be promoted by the art of exotic sculpture in the culture WHSs. Su and Lin [20] researched WHSs’ impact on native tourism and presented the positive relationship between WHSs and tourists. Cuccia et al. [21] examined the position of WHSs in reinforcement of tourism destination by using Italia as a case study. They demonstrated that Italia’s tourism could be improved by cultural and environmental endowments that are embodied in local WHSs.WHSs could promote local economic growth through boosting tourism [22]. Trinh and Ryan [23] analyzed innovation effect of WHS tourism at local industries that took advantages of WHSs’ brands to exploit the tourism market of Sweden. The tourism innovation was demonstrated to get facilitated by developing new products and marketing strategies. Deng and Ma [24] examined the indirect and direct impacts of tourist on industrial upgrading of China’s 4 representative tourist cities from 2000 to 2011. The research proposed that facilities investment and human capital are critical transfer avenues, through which the tourist industry can exert positive impact on industrial upgrading.Developing countries’ tourism boosted by WHSs helps to generate income, provide jobs, promote cross-cultural awareness, and diversify economy. Tourism gradually becomes a main industry in their native economy [25]. Kenya’s ecotourism and conventional market is attributed to its long-term established tourist sector, which has accounted for 3.57 percent of the country’s GDP in 2016. Increased tourists have created a variety of operations, from food suppliers, adventure sports providers, and hotels [26]. The tourism enables Egypt that is poor in material wealth but rich in heritage, culture, and history to employ its unique characteristics as an income-generating advantage. Tourism industry encourages local development of infrastructure that promotes host communities, such as sports centers, health care facilities, and roads to foreign visitors [27].Some studies present that the WHSs are an increasingly important driving force in China’s economic growth [28]. The income from China’s tourism industry has increased rapidly on average 22.3% annually since 2010. Tourism added approximately $625.3 billion to the country’s economy. Regions that own heritage sites saw an increase of 12.7% in gross domestic product (GDP) [29]. Moreover, WHSs push industrial upgrading by accelerating tourism development. Since 2015, the added value of China’s tourism industry reached $2,742 billion, accounting for 5.1% of its GDP. The rapid growth in tourism stimulates development in transportation, catering, and hospitality. China’s tourism brought about 65.09 million jobs in 2015, accounting for 8.41% of the country’s total employment. The bountiful natural resources and valuable culture embodied in the sites have attracted investments from local enterprises [2, 30].


## 2.2. WHSs and Ecological Disruption

The aim of including sites into WHSs is to protect the global wealth for the future generation. However, WHSs are often used as a marketing advertising campaign for local tourism to increase destinations’ global popularity to attract many visitors [31]. Thus, WHSs’ ecological environments face threats [32, 33]. Increasing WHSs are considered in jeopardy and recorded in the List of WHSs in Danger [26, 34].Excessive exploitation of heritage sites has engendered subsequent problems [35, 36]. Heritage sites are vulnerable to the impact of various human endeavors as well as ecological change. The sites are often subjected to defacement. For example, wild animals, soil, and vegetation are influenced by camping activity in the Mount Wutai in China [37]. Meanwhile, the opening of karst caves to tourists has impeded conservation effects in Huanglong Cave and Furong Cave, the most outstanding examples of karst caves in China’s natural and cultural heritage sites [38]. The influence of tourism on the ecological environment is extremely significant, especially with increasing tourist arrivals into small areas.The disruption of WHSs is also reflected in water and lake contamination and travertine degradation [39, 40]. Water pollution becomes a severe problem in mountainous areas. The most remarkable change is the permanently increasing heavy metals in water: massive development of infrastructure facilities, such as service facilities, railways, airports, and roads, has increased construction waste in lakes [41, 42].


## 2.3. Sustainable Development and Performance Analysis

The concept of sustainable development refers to a principle to satisfy the goal of human development [43] while keeping the ability of providing ecosystem services and natural resource that a country relies on [44]. Currently, its focus has been shifted to environmental protection, social development, and economic development for future generations. The environment sustainability needs the society to design human activity to satisfy their needs when protecting the life support system of the earth [45]. Therefore, sustainable development involves the improvement in the quality of human life and makes decrease in natural resource consumption. Clean water, affordable energy, innovation and infrastructure, economic growth, industry, sustainable communities, peace, and good health and well-being are summarized as sustainable development’s main goals [46].Scholars proposed sustainable development mode to solve dilemma between economic development and ecological protection for WHSs. Sustainable development of WHSs is proposed to be environment sustainability that includes economic development through integrating the protection system [47]. This development mode denotes an equitable balance about economic development and ecological protection, so it serves as a fundamental principle for both aspects of development [48].The promotion of sustainable development principles during the management of WHSs would improve both ecology and economy while considering the need of local communities [49]. The development pattern stresses protection, use, and development of cultural or natural resources, which provides people and local communities with the social and economic well-being [50]. The protection of WHSs makes critical contributions to the sustainable development. A well-protected heritage can leave richness of natural and cultural resources for the current and future generations. These sites are important assets for economic growth as they bring about investment and provide respectable jobs in tourism industry [51]. Therefore, WHSs contribute to significant economic benefits, such as job creation and revenues from tourism.There are a variety of studies that evaluate economic development and ecological protection of WHSs. However, they fail to evaluate holistic performance by combining the two processes. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is generally employed for performance evaluation for that it readily accommodates multi-input multi-output production technologies [52].For ecological performance, Castro et al. [53] analyzed Italy’s cultural heritage protection. They studied effect of specializations in contract authority on the management efficiency of WHSs’ protection through DEA approach. They found the expertise was occupying an essential role that affected cultural WHSs’ efficiency. Guccio et al. [54] analyzed the influence of government policy on heritage protection [55] that incorporated public spending, tax expenditures, and regulation from an empirical perspective. A variety of factors that influence the protection activities of Sicily’s WHSs from 1993 to 2005 were analyzed by using one-stage DEA method. The results indicated efficiencies were determined by economic and political policies as operational factors did not influence WHSs’ performance.For economic performance, Cuccia et al. [56] explored the influence of cultural WHSs on promoting tourist market. They used cultural heritage sites in Italy from 1995 to 2010 as samples. It was found that the cultural and environmental endowments could specifically influence performance of Italian WHSs for that they generated effective prospect on demand of the tourism market. Yao et al. [57] made the evaluation of low carbon performance in tourist by using DEA method. The study employed Leshan that is a representative natural and cultural heritage in Southwest China as a practical sample to investigate the ecological conservation. Cuccia et al. [58] examined the influence of WHSs on the promoting Italia’s tourist performance for the period 1995-2010. The study examined the effectiveness of local development policy by using a static approach and bootstrap procedure. They demonstrated the cultural and natural endowments within the WHSs could positively influence Italian tourism.WHSs’ sustainable development denotes a balance between economic growth and ecological protection. However, the above studies just studied either economic development or ecological protection, rather than considering both processes and the relationship between them. In addition, they evaluated the performance in a single period, for example, on year. The multiperiod performance was not presented. Therefore, this study employed the dynamic network slacks-based measure (SBM) that proposes a long-term dynamic view for empirical analysis.


## 3. Research Designs

### 3.1. Sustainable Model for WHSs

Since sustainable development denotes an equitable balance between economic development and ecological protection, we would propose a two-stage model consisting of the two processes. Figure1 provides this two-stage model. Two-stage dynamic network SBM was employed for sustainable performance. The efficiency usually refers to the capability of a specific application to produce outcomes with a minimal number of inputs [50]. The evaluation of efficiency for sustainable development is assessed according to the ratio of total inputs transformed into total outputs. A WHS’ sustainable development could be divided into ecological efficiency and economic efficiency. Ecological efficiency evaluates capability for ecological maintenance, while economic efficiency evaluates ability to make economic benefits.Figure 1
Structure of world heritage sites’ sustainable development.The objective of ecological efficiency is to check if the investment into ecological environment maximizes the outcome in environment conservation. The investment includes professional management personnel (PMP) and expenditure on environmental protection (EEP). The PMP denotes human capitals working for WHSs while EEP was supported through government revenue. The tourists’ perception of the environment (TPE) and government assessment of environment (GAE) are used as the output.Economic efficiency measures a heritage site’s performance of economic development. Number of local hotels (NLH), local employees in tourism (LET), and expenditure on infrastructure (EI) represent investment in service facilities, employment, and capital in this stage. Local tourism incomes (LTI) and local GDP (LGDP) were employed to evaluate the performance of economic growth that denotes outputs. The definition of each factor was presented in Table1.Table 1
Definition of each variable.
VariableDefinitionReferenceEcological processInputEEPGovernments’ expense on environmental protection (USD)Seidl [44] and Lin [20]; and Li et al. [51]PMPProfessional management personnel working in WHSs (persons)Cellini and Torrisi [52]; Zhang et al. [2]; and Ribaudo and Figini [53]Carry-over (output)GAEGovernments’ assessment of environment (index)Cui et al. [54]; [54] and Le [42]; Parahoo et al. [55]; and Su et al. [22]OutputTPETourists’ perception of the environment (index)Yaniv et al. [37] and Bui and Le [41]Economic processInputEIGovernments’ expense on infrastructure (million USD)Guccio et al. [47]; Sofield and Li [56]; and Martin et al. [14]LETThe number of local employment in tourism (persons)Ryan et al. [40] and Donohoe [57]NLHNumber of hotels located in the world heritage sites (number)Arezki et al. [17]; Li et al. [51]; and Amado et al. [58]Carry-over (output)LGDPLocal GDP (million USD)Barrio and Herrero [59] and Barrio and Herrero [60]OutputLTITourism income (million USD)Li et al. [35] and Cellini and Torrisi [52]


### 3.2. Sample and Data Collection

China owns 56 WHSs, which rank second in the world and first in developing countries. These WHSs almost cover the most valuable and essential tourism resources. The heritage tourism has significantly promoted local development in China, especially in newly recognized WHSs. In addition, China’s WHSs are attracting and serving a large number of domestic tourists than in other countries due to its rapid economic growth and large population. The circumstance has created many challenges on resource management at WHSs in China to address issues between ecological protection and economic development. China’s 45 WHSs were chosen as empirical samples. These sites are located in remote and underdeveloped regions; nevertheless, they are renowned at home and abroad. Each WHS is regarded as a DMU in research model. Data of the heritage sites for analysis were acquired from theYearbook of China Tourism Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook, and regional annual report from 2013 to 2019. Table 2 provides descriptive statistics for each input and output factor.Table 2
Descriptive statistics of each input and output from 2013 to 2019.
VariableMeanMedianMinMaxStd.PMP21132343791183EEP2171027136197196GAE93194490399743.3NLH101913374652317874TPE716242973.7LET59864923213797172789EI1191932136767.1LTI61275952481298714152LGDP2371123432591117Significant positive relationship between each input and output factor was demonstrated in Table3, which is in accordance with hypothesis that an increase in input results into increases in corresponding output [59]. The correlation analysis is used to verify the relationship between input factor and output factors. A positive correlation between these variables indicates that more input factors produce more output factors, which accords with characteristics of DEA [60].Table 3
Relationship between inputs and outputs in each process.
InputOutputEcological processGAETPEPMP0.571∗0.497∗EEP0.431∗0.409∗Economic processLTILGDPEI0.573∗0.701∗∗NLH0.529∗0.578∗LET0.487∗0.455∗TPE0.653∗0.514∗∗p-value <0.10. ∗∗p-value <0.05.


### 3.3. Methodology

If a WHS performs good in ecological process and economic process, it employs fewer investments (input) and ultimately produces more output. Charnes et al. [61] used to develop the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, which was widely employed to evaluate relative efficiency of a group of objectives. As a nonparametric approach, DEA employs the mathematical program to solve complex production with multiple input factors and output factors [62, 63]. The traditional DEA method is unable to deal with black-box problem during each stage at a network structure [64, 65]. The production process was treated as a “black box” by traditional DEA, which ignored the link among each subdecision making units (DMUs) and made it impossible to improve DMUs’ performance themselves. In addition, a DMU’s activity generally continues across multiple years. The windows analysis, Malmquist Index, and Dynamic DEA were developed to solve the dynamic processes within DMU. As a result, the network SBM has been proposed to consider the internal connection through linking variables [66, 67]. This method proposes that there are many subprocesses during a DMU, and these subunits formulate networks by different links [68].Dynamic network SBM is adopted to study the cross-period performance of WHSs in China for that it evaluates operation performance from the long-term perspective [69]. The performance measure consists of network SBM and dynamic SBM, which confirms evaluation of overall efficiency by cross-period research, as well as evaluating period efficiency at each divisional level [70]. The method produces efficiency scores that range between 0,1. A DMU is defined efficient if the efficiency score equals 1. For the DEA formulation, [71] the symbolic notations contained in this measure are defined in Table 4.Table 4
Symbolic notations of the dynamic network SBM.
Symbolic notationExplanationmktThe amount of inputs in divisionkrktThe amount of outputs in divisionkxijkti=1,...,mktTheith input of division k of DMUj at period tyrjktr=1,...,rtkTherth output of division k of DMUj at period tzjk,hintInput link during divisionk and division h of DMUj at period tzjklt,t+1Desirable (good) carry-over of DMUj in division k between period t and period t+1siokt−Slacks of theith input in division k of DMUj at period tsrokt+Slacks of therth output in division k of DMUj at period tsok,hlintSlacks of linkk,hl of DMUo at period tsoklt,t+1Slacks of carry-overkl between period t and period t+1linkinkThe number of as-input link in divisionkngoodkThe number of desirable (good) carry-overs during divisionkwkThe weight to divisionkWtThe weight to periodtThe dynamic network model presented in Figure1 copes with n WHSs composed of Kk=1,...,K stages during Tt=1,...,T terms. These stages were equally weighted in this study. The link between division k and h is presented as k,hl. The overall efficiency of DMUO is calculated through the following programs:(1)θo∗=min∑t=1TWt∑k=1Kwk1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt∑t=1TWt∑k=1Kwk1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yrokt(2)s.t.xiokt=∑j=1nxijktλjkt+sikt−k=1,...,K;t=1,...,Tyrokt=∑j=1nyrjktλjkt−srkt+k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nλjkt=1k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nzjk,hint=∑j=1nzjk,hintλjkt+sjk,hintk,hin=1,...,linkin;kt=1,...Tzoklt,t+1=∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt−soklt,t+1kl=1,...,ngoodk;k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt=∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt+1kl=1,...,ngoodk;k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑k=1Kwk=1∑t=1TWt=1λjkt≥0,sikt−≥0,srkt+≥0,soklt,t+1≥0Then, the efficiency for each period and period-division is assessed by the expressions, respectively:(3)τot∗=∑k=1Kwk1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt∑k=1Kwk1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yroktt=1,...,T(4)ρokt∗=1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yroktk=1,...,K;t=1,...,T


## 3.1. Sustainable Model for WHSs

Since sustainable development denotes an equitable balance between economic development and ecological protection, we would propose a two-stage model consisting of the two processes. Figure1 provides this two-stage model. Two-stage dynamic network SBM was employed for sustainable performance. The efficiency usually refers to the capability of a specific application to produce outcomes with a minimal number of inputs [50]. The evaluation of efficiency for sustainable development is assessed according to the ratio of total inputs transformed into total outputs. A WHS’ sustainable development could be divided into ecological efficiency and economic efficiency. Ecological efficiency evaluates capability for ecological maintenance, while economic efficiency evaluates ability to make economic benefits.Figure 1
Structure of world heritage sites’ sustainable development.The objective of ecological efficiency is to check if the investment into ecological environment maximizes the outcome in environment conservation. The investment includes professional management personnel (PMP) and expenditure on environmental protection (EEP). The PMP denotes human capitals working for WHSs while EEP was supported through government revenue. The tourists’ perception of the environment (TPE) and government assessment of environment (GAE) are used as the output.Economic efficiency measures a heritage site’s performance of economic development. Number of local hotels (NLH), local employees in tourism (LET), and expenditure on infrastructure (EI) represent investment in service facilities, employment, and capital in this stage. Local tourism incomes (LTI) and local GDP (LGDP) were employed to evaluate the performance of economic growth that denotes outputs. The definition of each factor was presented in Table1.Table 1
Definition of each variable.
VariableDefinitionReferenceEcological processInputEEPGovernments’ expense on environmental protection (USD)Seidl [44] and Lin [20]; and Li et al. [51]PMPProfessional management personnel working in WHSs (persons)Cellini and Torrisi [52]; Zhang et al. [2]; and Ribaudo and Figini [53]Carry-over (output)GAEGovernments’ assessment of environment (index)Cui et al. [54]; [54] and Le [42]; Parahoo et al. [55]; and Su et al. [22]OutputTPETourists’ perception of the environment (index)Yaniv et al. [37] and Bui and Le [41]Economic processInputEIGovernments’ expense on infrastructure (million USD)Guccio et al. [47]; Sofield and Li [56]; and Martin et al. [14]LETThe number of local employment in tourism (persons)Ryan et al. [40] and Donohoe [57]NLHNumber of hotels located in the world heritage sites (number)Arezki et al. [17]; Li et al. [51]; and Amado et al. [58]Carry-over (output)LGDPLocal GDP (million USD)Barrio and Herrero [59] and Barrio and Herrero [60]OutputLTITourism income (million USD)Li et al. [35] and Cellini and Torrisi [52]


## 3.2. Sample and Data Collection

China owns 56 WHSs, which rank second in the world and first in developing countries. These WHSs almost cover the most valuable and essential tourism resources. The heritage tourism has significantly promoted local development in China, especially in newly recognized WHSs. In addition, China’s WHSs are attracting and serving a large number of domestic tourists than in other countries due to its rapid economic growth and large population. The circumstance has created many challenges on resource management at WHSs in China to address issues between ecological protection and economic development. China’s 45 WHSs were chosen as empirical samples. These sites are located in remote and underdeveloped regions; nevertheless, they are renowned at home and abroad. Each WHS is regarded as a DMU in research model. Data of the heritage sites for analysis were acquired from theYearbook of China Tourism Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook, and regional annual report from 2013 to 2019. Table 2 provides descriptive statistics for each input and output factor.Table 2
Descriptive statistics of each input and output from 2013 to 2019.
VariableMeanMedianMinMaxStd.PMP21132343791183EEP2171027136197196GAE93194490399743.3NLH101913374652317874TPE716242973.7LET59864923213797172789EI1191932136767.1LTI61275952481298714152LGDP2371123432591117Significant positive relationship between each input and output factor was demonstrated in Table3, which is in accordance with hypothesis that an increase in input results into increases in corresponding output [59]. The correlation analysis is used to verify the relationship between input factor and output factors. A positive correlation between these variables indicates that more input factors produce more output factors, which accords with characteristics of DEA [60].Table 3
Relationship between inputs and outputs in each process.
InputOutputEcological processGAETPEPMP0.571∗0.497∗EEP0.431∗0.409∗Economic processLTILGDPEI0.573∗0.701∗∗NLH0.529∗0.578∗LET0.487∗0.455∗TPE0.653∗0.514∗∗p-value <0.10. ∗∗p-value <0.05.


## 3.3. Methodology

If a WHS performs good in ecological process and economic process, it employs fewer investments (input) and ultimately produces more output. Charnes et al. [61] used to develop the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, which was widely employed to evaluate relative efficiency of a group of objectives. As a nonparametric approach, DEA employs the mathematical program to solve complex production with multiple input factors and output factors [62, 63]. The traditional DEA method is unable to deal with black-box problem during each stage at a network structure [64, 65]. The production process was treated as a “black box” by traditional DEA, which ignored the link among each subdecision making units (DMUs) and made it impossible to improve DMUs’ performance themselves. In addition, a DMU’s activity generally continues across multiple years. The windows analysis, Malmquist Index, and Dynamic DEA were developed to solve the dynamic processes within DMU. As a result, the network SBM has been proposed to consider the internal connection through linking variables [66, 67]. This method proposes that there are many subprocesses during a DMU, and these subunits formulate networks by different links [68].Dynamic network SBM is adopted to study the cross-period performance of WHSs in China for that it evaluates operation performance from the long-term perspective [69]. The performance measure consists of network SBM and dynamic SBM, which confirms evaluation of overall efficiency by cross-period research, as well as evaluating period efficiency at each divisional level [70]. The method produces efficiency scores that range between 0,1. A DMU is defined efficient if the efficiency score equals 1. For the DEA formulation, [71] the symbolic notations contained in this measure are defined in Table 4.Table 4
Symbolic notations of the dynamic network SBM.
Symbolic notationExplanationmktThe amount of inputs in divisionkrktThe amount of outputs in divisionkxijkti=1,...,mktTheith input of division k of DMUj at period tyrjktr=1,...,rtkTherth output of division k of DMUj at period tzjk,hintInput link during divisionk and division h of DMUj at period tzjklt,t+1Desirable (good) carry-over of DMUj in division k between period t and period t+1siokt−Slacks of theith input in division k of DMUj at period tsrokt+Slacks of therth output in division k of DMUj at period tsok,hlintSlacks of linkk,hl of DMUo at period tsoklt,t+1Slacks of carry-overkl between period t and period t+1linkinkThe number of as-input link in divisionkngoodkThe number of desirable (good) carry-overs during divisionkwkThe weight to divisionkWtThe weight to periodtThe dynamic network model presented in Figure1 copes with n WHSs composed of Kk=1,...,K stages during Tt=1,...,T terms. These stages were equally weighted in this study. The link between division k and h is presented as k,hl. The overall efficiency of DMUO is calculated through the following programs:(1)θo∗=min∑t=1TWt∑k=1Kwk1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt∑t=1TWt∑k=1Kwk1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yrokt(2)s.t.xiokt=∑j=1nxijktλjkt+sikt−k=1,...,K;t=1,...,Tyrokt=∑j=1nyrjktλjkt−srkt+k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nλjkt=1k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nzjk,hint=∑j=1nzjk,hintλjkt+sjk,hintk,hin=1,...,linkin;kt=1,...Tzoklt,t+1=∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt−soklt,t+1kl=1,...,ngoodk;k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt=∑j=1nzjklt,t+1λjkt+1kl=1,...,ngoodk;k=1,...,K;t=1,...,T∑k=1Kwk=1∑t=1TWt=1λjkt≥0,sikt−≥0,srkt+≥0,soklt,t+1≥0Then, the efficiency for each period and period-division is assessed by the expressions, respectively:(3)τot∗=∑k=1Kwk1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt∑k=1Kwk1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yroktt=1,...,T(4)ρokt∗=1−1/linkinkt+mkt∑khl=1linkinktsok,hint/zokhint+∑i=1mktsikt−/xiokt1+1/ngoodkt+rkt∑kl=1ngoodktsoklt,t+1/zoklt,t+1+∑r=1rktsrkt+/yroktk=1,...,K;t=1,...,T


## 4. Empirical Analysis

### 4.1. Sustainable Efficiency Analysis

This paper employed the dynamic network SBM to assess the two-stage sustainable development model for China’s WHSs. The linking activity between the two processes is freely determined. Table5 provides empirical results of average ecological efficiency, economic efficiency, and overall efficiency from 2013 to 2019. The efficiency score range is in the interval of 0,1. A WHS’s performance is deemed efficient at the score 1, while one is not efficient below 1.Table 5
Average efficiency of ecological protection, economic development, and overall process for each WHS for the period 2013-2019.
WHS5A-ratingEcological protectionEconomic developmentOverall processWudang5A1.0001.0001.000Pingyao5A0.3431.0000.672XidiNon-5A0.3070.9200.614Koguryo kingdom5A0.4450.9110.678HongheNon-5A0.2550.8010.528Dazu5A0.1310.5970.364Fujian tulouNon-5A0.7190.8810.800PotalaNon-5A0.4520.4730.463Dengfeng5A0.5520.8790.716Tombs5A0.4720.9120.692DiaolouNon-5A0.7150.7520.734Longmen GrottoesNon-5A0.4070.4830.445Lushan5A1.0001.0001.000Qin emperor5A1.0000.4740.737Mogao Caves5A0.5120.8910.702Mount QingchengNon-5A0.4970.5070.502Mount Wutai5A0.1671.0000.584Mountain resortNon-5A0.1550.4390.297Peking Man Site5A1.0000.6970.849XanaduNon-5A0.3530.5370.445Kong Mansion5A0.8020.5080.655Tusi SitesNon-5A0.2570.8110.534Yinxu5A0.9811.0000.991Yungang GrottoesNon-5A0.3180.4810.400Tea plantationsNon-5A0.7910.9070.849Dong villages5A0.6840.8120.748Fenghuang5A0.6670.9330.800LingquNon-5A0.3570.4770.417Hongshan5A0.6910.8310.761West Lake5A0.3190.5870.453Lijiang5A0.4110.7510.581Western XiaNon-5A0.2720.6190.446ChengjiangNon-5A0.6210.3170.469Huanglong5A1.0001.0001.000ShennongjiaNon-5A0.7520.5270.640Jiuzhaigou5A1.0001.0001.000SanqingshanNon-5A0.4950.3370.416Three parallel rivers5A0.8380.4910.665Wulingyuan5A0.6680.5010.585Tian Shan5A0.8780.4890.684Altay5A0.7870.7410.764Huashan5A0.9770.7480.863TianzhushanNon-5A0.8740.4470.661Wudalianchi5A0.7930.3480.571YandangNon-5A0.5920.4480.520Average0.6090.6930.652Because sustainability refers to a balanced development between economic growth and ecological protection, a heritage site that performs good in both processes can be considered as efficient. Table5 indicates that only Wudang, Lushan, Huanglong, and Jiuzhaigou are efficient in overall performance during the study period. The four sites are in China’s underdeveloped regions, where tourism occupies a critical [72] role in the local economy. The local governments emphasize conservation of ecosystems, folk customs, and historic sites to acquire intangible value for tourism. Consequently, the overall quality of these sites improves quickly in terms of natural environment conservation and the local economy.Compared with the four efficient WHSs, Peking Man sites and Qin Emperor are efficient in the ecological process. Poor performance of economic process of these WHSs leads to sustainable development’s low efficiency. Qin Emperor is considered as a most famous emperor tomb with many exquisite funeral aims and distinct standards. Unfortunately, the local governments have restricted scenic area development to preserve native ecosystem, thus delaying economic growth.Ping Yao, Mount Wutai, and Yin Xu are efficient in their economic processes. These WHSs expanded their tourism at home and abroad since the 1990s. However, the overly emphasized economic development sabotaged the environment. For example, as China’s most famous Sacred Buddhist Mountain, Mount Wutai, was remarkable for its natural landscape. In recent years, forests were felled to build shops and hotels to satisfy the large flows of tourists. The abundant Buddhist culture not only brings about economic benefit but also causes harms to local cultural environment.


### 4.2. Relationships between Economic Development and Ecological Protection

Figure2 shows the average trends of 45 WHSs for ecological efficiency, economic efficiency, and overall efficiency. The results indicate that ecological efficiency and economic efficiency are gradually growing, resulting in an increase of overall efficiency from 0.630 in 2013 to 0.707 in 2019. The ecological efficiency increased from 0.493 to 0.664, while economic efficiency increased from 0.665 to 0.729, which indicates that both ecological performance and economic performance have developed.Figure 2
Average performances of ecological protection, economic development, and overall process.A scatter plot was drawn to further verify the relationship between economic efficiency and ecological efficiency. Figure3 presents this scatter plot to suggest that efficiency scores of ecological process and economic process display similar development trends. WHSs with good performance in ecological processes exhibit relatively better efficiency in the economic processes. The study conducted a correlation test between efficiencies of both stages to check the reciprocal relationship.Figure 3
Scatter plot of economic efficiency and ecological efficiency.Spearman’s rank correlation was employed to verify the relationship between ecological efficiency and economic efficiency. This approach is a nonparametric test, which does not ask for hypothesis about data distribution. Table6 examines the relation between the two stages. The relationship between the two mean values of the two stages is statistically significant and positive.Table 6
Spearman correlation of ecological efficiency and economic efficiency.
2013201420152016201720182019OverallCoefficient value0.1010.4270.1890.1370.4290.5300.6690.413p-Value0.3780.038∗0.2520.1090.033∗0.028∗0.005∗0.042∗∗p<0.05.WHSs’ sustainability is intimately related to tourism. In addition, the balanced development between economic growth and ecological protection is essential for sustainable development. High ecological efficiency indicates good ecological environment, which brings about beautiful identify to attract tourists in turn. More tourism arrivals promote local communities’ revenues, which finally allows for more investment in WHS conservation and management. Meanwhile, rapid economic development substantially boosts the government’s income, resulting in sufficient capital to protect ecological environment. It’s essential to protect ecological environment to promote tourism since clean environment, beautiful landscapes, and good air quality are critical for tourism.


### 4.3. Tourist Attraction Rating Categories and Sustainable Development

There has been imbalance in economic development and ecological conservation of many heritage sites in China. To consider sustainable development for these sites, the Chinese National Tourism Administration has used tourist attraction rating system to score the quality of the attraction for safety, cleanliness, sanitation, shopping, and transportation [12]. It is broken up into five categories which are A, 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A. The 5A-rating is the supreme grade and granted to the most important sites in China. This system emphasizes that the ecological environment can be protected effectively by sensible planning and instructions. The rating covers nine domains: tourism transportation, tour guiding, travel security, sanitation, telecommunication service, shopping, environmental protection, tourist advertisement, and tourist satisfaction. Ecological process and economic process are affected by these domains in practice. The heritage sites in China are encouraged to improve their environment, infrastructure, and operation mechanisms to be rated as 5A-tourist attractions. A heritage site that is approved by the 5A-rating system could have a better image at home and abroad, which ensures more market shares in tourism and subsidies from local government. Among the 45 heritage sites that are used as samples in this study, 26 sites have been rated as the 5A-tourist attractions.To explore whether differences exist in 5A sites and non-5A sites, Mann–Whitney U test was employed to explore whether differences exist in 5A sites and non-5A sites. This method is often used to compare the difference between two independent groups while the dependent variables are not normally distributed, which are corresponding to the efficiency values of 5A sites and non-5A sites in this study. The scale of measurement could be ratio, interval, and ordinal. It is appropriate for unknown distribution values without making the hypothesis that the data are normally distributed. Table 7 provides the test results of ecological performance of the two kinds of sites. The overall mean efficiency from 2013 to 2019 indicates that 5A sites enjoy a better performance value of 0.597. There were significant differences between the 5A and non-5A sites in ecological performance from 2012 to 2014 at the significance level of 5%. This demonstrates that in the fifth year after implementing the 5A-rated system, considerable differences among the ecological performances can be found. Heritage sites that have carried out the 5A-rated system show better ecological efficiency.Table 7
Ecological performance of 5A and non-5A sites.
2013201420152016201720182019Overall5AMean0.5080.5310.5770.6220.6750.6790.6800.597Non-5AMean0.5020.5060.5290.5970.6110.6180.6320.568p-Value0.5210.2970.087∗0.1120.044∗∗0.028∗∗0.025∗∗0.072∗∗∗p<0.05. ∗p<0.10.Some heritage sites, represented by Jiuzhaigou, Peking Man Site, Huanglong, and Huashan, drew up regulations according to the 5A-rated system. Local administrations of these sites enhance tourism by improving local environments, including promoting air and water quality, as well as conservation of landscapes, cultural relics, and ancient monuments. They also encourage the use of clean fuels and materials to preserve the environment. Native ecosystem conservation—particularly in terms of preserving the vegetation, pastoral scenery, and natural habitat—is considered when drawing up the regulations. In a sense, the 5A-rated system ensures a balance between tourism and environment conservation.The Mann–WhitneyU test of differences between 5A and non-5A sites in economic performance is described in Table 8. The overall mean efficiency from 2013 to 2019 indicates that 5A sites enjoy a better performance of 0.735, with efficiency of 0.658 for non-5A sites. A significant relationship of a 5% statistical level exists between the overall efficiency of the two types of sites (5A and non-5A). Significant differences exist in economic efficiencies between the two types of sites since 2009, which indicates that the 5A-rating system has a more pronounced effect on economic processes.Table 8
Economic performance of 5A and non-5A sites.
2013201420152016201720182019Overall5AMean0.6880.6970.7020.7250.7510.7550.8240.735Non-5AMean0.6310.6520.6380.6770.6860.6790.6430.658p-Value0.2210.038∗∗0.091∗0.012∗∗0.027∗∗0.005∗∗0.008∗∗0.000∗∗∗∗p<0.05. ∗p<0.10.The 5A-rating system aims to promote the collaboration of ecological and economic processes by improving the ecological environment as well as developing service quality. A considerable number of positive outcomes have been observed for the overall performance. With an emphasis on rating the environmental quality of tourist attractions, heritage sites that perform excellently in the ecological process benefit from sensible planning and instructions. Additionally, some heritage sites, such as Wudang, Lushan, Mount Wutai, and Pingyao, have invested largely in infrastructure and employees for local tourism under the 5A-rated standard, which attracts an increased number of tourists who stimulate growth in local service.


## 4.1. Sustainable Efficiency Analysis

This paper employed the dynamic network SBM to assess the two-stage sustainable development model for China’s WHSs. The linking activity between the two processes is freely determined. Table5 provides empirical results of average ecological efficiency, economic efficiency, and overall efficiency from 2013 to 2019. The efficiency score range is in the interval of 0,1. A WHS’s performance is deemed efficient at the score 1, while one is not efficient below 1.Table 5
Average efficiency of ecological protection, economic development, and overall process for each WHS for the period 2013-2019.
WHS5A-ratingEcological protectionEconomic developmentOverall processWudang5A1.0001.0001.000Pingyao5A0.3431.0000.672XidiNon-5A0.3070.9200.614Koguryo kingdom5A0.4450.9110.678HongheNon-5A0.2550.8010.528Dazu5A0.1310.5970.364Fujian tulouNon-5A0.7190.8810.800PotalaNon-5A0.4520.4730.463Dengfeng5A0.5520.8790.716Tombs5A0.4720.9120.692DiaolouNon-5A0.7150.7520.734Longmen GrottoesNon-5A0.4070.4830.445Lushan5A1.0001.0001.000Qin emperor5A1.0000.4740.737Mogao Caves5A0.5120.8910.702Mount QingchengNon-5A0.4970.5070.502Mount Wutai5A0.1671.0000.584Mountain resortNon-5A0.1550.4390.297Peking Man Site5A1.0000.6970.849XanaduNon-5A0.3530.5370.445Kong Mansion5A0.8020.5080.655Tusi SitesNon-5A0.2570.8110.534Yinxu5A0.9811.0000.991Yungang GrottoesNon-5A0.3180.4810.400Tea plantationsNon-5A0.7910.9070.849Dong villages5A0.6840.8120.748Fenghuang5A0.6670.9330.800LingquNon-5A0.3570.4770.417Hongshan5A0.6910.8310.761West Lake5A0.3190.5870.453Lijiang5A0.4110.7510.581Western XiaNon-5A0.2720.6190.446ChengjiangNon-5A0.6210.3170.469Huanglong5A1.0001.0001.000ShennongjiaNon-5A0.7520.5270.640Jiuzhaigou5A1.0001.0001.000SanqingshanNon-5A0.4950.3370.416Three parallel rivers5A0.8380.4910.665Wulingyuan5A0.6680.5010.585Tian Shan5A0.8780.4890.684Altay5A0.7870.7410.764Huashan5A0.9770.7480.863TianzhushanNon-5A0.8740.4470.661Wudalianchi5A0.7930.3480.571YandangNon-5A0.5920.4480.520Average0.6090.6930.652Because sustainability refers to a balanced development between economic growth and ecological protection, a heritage site that performs good in both processes can be considered as efficient. Table5 indicates that only Wudang, Lushan, Huanglong, and Jiuzhaigou are efficient in overall performance during the study period. The four sites are in China’s underdeveloped regions, where tourism occupies a critical [72] role in the local economy. The local governments emphasize conservation of ecosystems, folk customs, and historic sites to acquire intangible value for tourism. Consequently, the overall quality of these sites improves quickly in terms of natural environment conservation and the local economy.Compared with the four efficient WHSs, Peking Man sites and Qin Emperor are efficient in the ecological process. Poor performance of economic process of these WHSs leads to sustainable development’s low efficiency. Qin Emperor is considered as a most famous emperor tomb with many exquisite funeral aims and distinct standards. Unfortunately, the local governments have restricted scenic area development to preserve native ecosystem, thus delaying economic growth.Ping Yao, Mount Wutai, and Yin Xu are efficient in their economic processes. These WHSs expanded their tourism at home and abroad since the 1990s. However, the overly emphasized economic development sabotaged the environment. For example, as China’s most famous Sacred Buddhist Mountain, Mount Wutai, was remarkable for its natural landscape. In recent years, forests were felled to build shops and hotels to satisfy the large flows of tourists. The abundant Buddhist culture not only brings about economic benefit but also causes harms to local cultural environment.


## 4.2. Relationships between Economic Development and Ecological Protection

Figure2 shows the average trends of 45 WHSs for ecological efficiency, economic efficiency, and overall efficiency. The results indicate that ecological efficiency and economic efficiency are gradually growing, resulting in an increase of overall efficiency from 0.630 in 2013 to 0.707 in 2019. The ecological efficiency increased from 0.493 to 0.664, while economic efficiency increased from 0.665 to 0.729, which indicates that both ecological performance and economic performance have developed.Figure 2
Average performances of ecological protection, economic development, and overall process.A scatter plot was drawn to further verify the relationship between economic efficiency and ecological efficiency. Figure3 presents this scatter plot to suggest that efficiency scores of ecological process and economic process display similar development trends. WHSs with good performance in ecological processes exhibit relatively better efficiency in the economic processes. The study conducted a correlation test between efficiencies of both stages to check the reciprocal relationship.Figure 3
Scatter plot of economic efficiency and ecological efficiency.Spearman’s rank correlation was employed to verify the relationship between ecological efficiency and economic efficiency. This approach is a nonparametric test, which does not ask for hypothesis about data distribution. Table6 examines the relation between the two stages. The relationship between the two mean values of the two stages is statistically significant and positive.Table 6
Spearman correlation of ecological efficiency and economic efficiency.
2013201420152016201720182019OverallCoefficient value0.1010.4270.1890.1370.4290.5300.6690.413p-Value0.3780.038∗0.2520.1090.033∗0.028∗0.005∗0.042∗∗p<0.05.WHSs’ sustainability is intimately related to tourism. In addition, the balanced development between economic growth and ecological protection is essential for sustainable development. High ecological efficiency indicates good ecological environment, which brings about beautiful identify to attract tourists in turn. More tourism arrivals promote local communities’ revenues, which finally allows for more investment in WHS conservation and management. Meanwhile, rapid economic development substantially boosts the government’s income, resulting in sufficient capital to protect ecological environment. It’s essential to protect ecological environment to promote tourism since clean environment, beautiful landscapes, and good air quality are critical for tourism.


## 4.3. Tourist Attraction Rating Categories and Sustainable Development

There has been imbalance in economic development and ecological conservation of many heritage sites in China. To consider sustainable development for these sites, the Chinese National Tourism Administration has used tourist attraction rating system to score the quality of the attraction for safety, cleanliness, sanitation, shopping, and transportation [12]. It is broken up into five categories which are A, 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A. The 5A-rating is the supreme grade and granted to the most important sites in China. This system emphasizes that the ecological environment can be protected effectively by sensible planning and instructions. The rating covers nine domains: tourism transportation, tour guiding, travel security, sanitation, telecommunication service, shopping, environmental protection, tourist advertisement, and tourist satisfaction. Ecological process and economic process are affected by these domains in practice. The heritage sites in China are encouraged to improve their environment, infrastructure, and operation mechanisms to be rated as 5A-tourist attractions. A heritage site that is approved by the 5A-rating system could have a better image at home and abroad, which ensures more market shares in tourism and subsidies from local government. Among the 45 heritage sites that are used as samples in this study, 26 sites have been rated as the 5A-tourist attractions.To explore whether differences exist in 5A sites and non-5A sites, Mann–Whitney U test was employed to explore whether differences exist in 5A sites and non-5A sites. This method is often used to compare the difference between two independent groups while the dependent variables are not normally distributed, which are corresponding to the efficiency values of 5A sites and non-5A sites in this study. The scale of measurement could be ratio, interval, and ordinal. It is appropriate for unknown distribution values without making the hypothesis that the data are normally distributed. Table 7 provides the test results of ecological performance of the two kinds of sites. The overall mean efficiency from 2013 to 2019 indicates that 5A sites enjoy a better performance value of 0.597. There were significant differences between the 5A and non-5A sites in ecological performance from 2012 to 2014 at the significance level of 5%. This demonstrates that in the fifth year after implementing the 5A-rated system, considerable differences among the ecological performances can be found. Heritage sites that have carried out the 5A-rated system show better ecological efficiency.Table 7
Ecological performance of 5A and non-5A sites.
2013201420152016201720182019Overall5AMean0.5080.5310.5770.6220.6750.6790.6800.597Non-5AMean0.5020.5060.5290.5970.6110.6180.6320.568p-Value0.5210.2970.087∗0.1120.044∗∗0.028∗∗0.025∗∗0.072∗∗∗p<0.05. ∗p<0.10.Some heritage sites, represented by Jiuzhaigou, Peking Man Site, Huanglong, and Huashan, drew up regulations according to the 5A-rated system. Local administrations of these sites enhance tourism by improving local environments, including promoting air and water quality, as well as conservation of landscapes, cultural relics, and ancient monuments. They also encourage the use of clean fuels and materials to preserve the environment. Native ecosystem conservation—particularly in terms of preserving the vegetation, pastoral scenery, and natural habitat—is considered when drawing up the regulations. In a sense, the 5A-rated system ensures a balance between tourism and environment conservation.The Mann–WhitneyU test of differences between 5A and non-5A sites in economic performance is described in Table 8. The overall mean efficiency from 2013 to 2019 indicates that 5A sites enjoy a better performance of 0.735, with efficiency of 0.658 for non-5A sites. A significant relationship of a 5% statistical level exists between the overall efficiency of the two types of sites (5A and non-5A). Significant differences exist in economic efficiencies between the two types of sites since 2009, which indicates that the 5A-rating system has a more pronounced effect on economic processes.Table 8
Economic performance of 5A and non-5A sites.
2013201420152016201720182019Overall5AMean0.6880.6970.7020.7250.7510.7550.8240.735Non-5AMean0.6310.6520.6380.6770.6860.6790.6430.658p-Value0.2210.038∗∗0.091∗0.012∗∗0.027∗∗0.005∗∗0.008∗∗0.000∗∗∗∗p<0.05. ∗p<0.10.The 5A-rating system aims to promote the collaboration of ecological and economic processes by improving the ecological environment as well as developing service quality. A considerable number of positive outcomes have been observed for the overall performance. With an emphasis on rating the environmental quality of tourist attractions, heritage sites that perform excellently in the ecological process benefit from sensible planning and instructions. Additionally, some heritage sites, such as Wudang, Lushan, Mount Wutai, and Pingyao, have invested largely in infrastructure and employees for local tourism under the 5A-rated standard, which attracts an increased number of tourists who stimulate growth in local service.


## 5. Conclusions

Since WHSs have become major tourist attractions that promote economic development for developing countries, increased number of tourists have thus brought about threats to ecological environment. Scholars stress that it should be sustainable or “green growth” since it comes to economic growth currently. The research established a sustainable development model for WHSs to empirically investigate the dilemma between economic development and ecological protection with particular emphasis on strategies that promote the sustainability. Dynamic network SBM was used to analyze dynamic performance of sustainable development for 45 WHSs in China. The sustainable development was divided into economic development and ecological protection to examine the trade-off between the two processes. Additionally, whether the 5A-rating system affects the performances of heritage sites was examined. The study has found that a WHS that performs excellently in the overall process is efficient in both processes. A balance between the two processes is critical for sustainability. It is demonstrated that an effective government policy can ensure sustainable development, though there is a dilemma in ecological protection and economic development.


## 6. Implications

Through empirical analysis of the performance for WHS in a two-stage model, this study identified the heterogeneity of the sustainable development efficiency within them. Implications are obtained and summarized from the empirical results.


### 6.1. Implications for Research

A WHS’ sustainable development would be promoted by balanced development between economic development and ecological protection. Heritage sites that attempt to reach sustainable development are suggested to improve defects in economic process or ecological process. In addition, the precondition relies on protecting both cultural and natural environments for the operation of ecotourism sites. Local governments could promote ecological sustainable development to each WHS to ensure mutual policy coherence and supportiveness in implementing balanced development, which consists of responsible interactions in both cultural and natural property. The balance development would relieve the depletion of natural resource, which insures the lasting ecological quality that will strengthen resistibility to the artificial destruction and disasters.Economic development and ecological conservation can support each other. Development of tourist is relying heavily on ecological environment. Rapid development of tour industry promotes the local government to invest capitals and employs into conservation by collaborating with professionals. Increased tourists are attracted to these sites, which results into increases of consumption for local economy. As a result, the problem of shortage of funds to protect WHSs can be solved by abundant fiscal revenues.Sustainable development of heritage sites is supported by effective policies. The government should set consistent development regulations for these venues. The China National Tourism Administration has established a 5A-rating system, which considers both the ecological environment and economic development for creating a relaxing, comfortable, and attractive travel destination. With an emphasis on rating the environmental quality of tourist attractions, this system protects air, water, ecosystems, cultural relics, and ancient buildings, using rigorously audited resources and environmental protection funds. The 5A standards also ensure coherence among buildings and the environment and prevent new buildings from damaging the scenery. Therefore, concrete strategies, measures, and approaches not only resolve the conflict of interest between tourism development and environmental protection but also facilitate resource and environmental conservation.


### 6.2. Implications for Practice

The government of each WHS is advised to improve the stage that it performs inefficient. Some WHSs keep good performance in economic growth, for example, Mount Wutai, Yinxu, and Ping Yao; nevertheless, the ecological protection is still inefficient. These sites attach importance to economic benefits and neglect to protect environment. Local governments need to make the management of the WHSs to satisfy regulations of native ecosystems. On the contrary, as representative WHSs, Peking Man Site and Qin Emperor perform good in ecological protection, but present relatively low economic growth. Tourists look forward to convenient access to these WHSs. Telecommunication services, transportation, sanitation, and safety should be improved to satisfy their demand.The government needs to control the balanced effect of activity on environment rather than focusing on regulating specific activities according to a liberal, market-based approach to environment planning. The introduction of balance sustainable development model into the WHSs needs collaboration during relevant institutions, practitioners, and communities. WHSs are important travel destinations for sustainability and local economic development. Sustainability in tourism development needs to be combined with equitable and inclusive economic investment to ensure benefit sharing.WHSs could be incorporated into international standard of care, control, and management. It is the government’s duty to establish high standard for economic and environmental management. Local governments should establish clear environment standard that imbues whole planning systems and eliminates negative impact on environment and cultural diversity, which are accomplished by facilitating environmental, social, and cultural assessment tools while carrying out plans in sectors such as transport, infrastructure, urban development, mining, and waste management. The governments are also advised to apply sustainable production and consumption pattern and promote the application of renewable source.


## 6.1. Implications for Research

A WHS’ sustainable development would be promoted by balanced development between economic development and ecological protection. Heritage sites that attempt to reach sustainable development are suggested to improve defects in economic process or ecological process. In addition, the precondition relies on protecting both cultural and natural environments for the operation of ecotourism sites. Local governments could promote ecological sustainable development to each WHS to ensure mutual policy coherence and supportiveness in implementing balanced development, which consists of responsible interactions in both cultural and natural property. The balance development would relieve the depletion of natural resource, which insures the lasting ecological quality that will strengthen resistibility to the artificial destruction and disasters.Economic development and ecological conservation can support each other. Development of tourist is relying heavily on ecological environment. Rapid development of tour industry promotes the local government to invest capitals and employs into conservation by collaborating with professionals. Increased tourists are attracted to these sites, which results into increases of consumption for local economy. As a result, the problem of shortage of funds to protect WHSs can be solved by abundant fiscal revenues.Sustainable development of heritage sites is supported by effective policies. The government should set consistent development regulations for these venues. The China National Tourism Administration has established a 5A-rating system, which considers both the ecological environment and economic development for creating a relaxing, comfortable, and attractive travel destination. With an emphasis on rating the environmental quality of tourist attractions, this system protects air, water, ecosystems, cultural relics, and ancient buildings, using rigorously audited resources and environmental protection funds. The 5A standards also ensure coherence among buildings and the environment and prevent new buildings from damaging the scenery. Therefore, concrete strategies, measures, and approaches not only resolve the conflict of interest between tourism development and environmental protection but also facilitate resource and environmental conservation.


## 6.2. Implications for Practice

The government of each WHS is advised to improve the stage that it performs inefficient. Some WHSs keep good performance in economic growth, for example, Mount Wutai, Yinxu, and Ping Yao; nevertheless, the ecological protection is still inefficient. These sites attach importance to economic benefits and neglect to protect environment. Local governments need to make the management of the WHSs to satisfy regulations of native ecosystems. On the contrary, as representative WHSs, Peking Man Site and Qin Emperor perform good in ecological protection, but present relatively low economic growth. Tourists look forward to convenient access to these WHSs. Telecommunication services, transportation, sanitation, and safety should be improved to satisfy their demand.The government needs to control the balanced effect of activity on environment rather than focusing on regulating specific activities according to a liberal, market-based approach to environment planning. The introduction of balance sustainable development model into the WHSs needs collaboration during relevant institutions, practitioners, and communities. WHSs are important travel destinations for sustainability and local economic development. Sustainability in tourism development needs to be combined with equitable and inclusive economic investment to ensure benefit sharing.WHSs could be incorporated into international standard of care, control, and management. It is the government’s duty to establish high standard for economic and environmental management. Local governments should establish clear environment standard that imbues whole planning systems and eliminates negative impact on environment and cultural diversity, which are accomplished by facilitating environmental, social, and cultural assessment tools while carrying out plans in sectors such as transport, infrastructure, urban development, mining, and waste management. The governments are also advised to apply sustainable production and consumption pattern and promote the application of renewable source.



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*Source: 3159411-2022-09-17.xml*