Evaluation of Tourism Development Efficiency and Spatial Spillover Effect Based on EBM Model: The Case of Hainan Island, China

Tourism development efficiency is one of the key scales to measure the development quality of tourism destination. This study improves the existing input–output index system of tourism efficiency evaluation; knowledge innovation is introduced into the input index, and environmental health pressure is introduced into the output index. Based on the case of Hainan Island, we used the EBM model compatible with radial and non-radial data to evaluate the tourism development efficiency. In order to make up the deficiency of spatial effect analysis based on the geographical distance weight matrix, the spatial spillover effect of tourism development in Hainan Island was analyzed based on a geographical distance weight matrix and an economic distance weight matrix. The findings indicate that nearly 20 years of the Hainan tourism development efficiency mean value was 0.7435, represented by Sanya, and Haikou city of Hainan’s tourism industry development level was higher. However, the spatial spillover effect of Hainan’s overall tourism development is not good. In addition to Tunchang, Ledong city suggests that an appropriate increase in tourism elements, such as investment, expands the scale of the tourism industry, and most cities follow the law of diminishing marginal utility and inappropriate scale blindly. Especially in the face of knowledge innovation becoming the main factor hindering the efficiency of tourism development, we should pay more attention to technological innovation and management reform and coordinate the relationship between tourism development and ecological environment protection.