Efficiency of tourism industry development in the Western China

Based on the BCC, CCR and Malmquist index models of the DEA method, 12 provinces in the Western China were chosen for an analysis of their technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, scale efficiency, technological progress index, total factor productivity in years 2000-2010. Also ananlyzed were their redundancy rate of input and insufficient rate of output. The results showed that, thanks to the increase in technological progress index, the total factor productivity index of the 12 provinces was greater than 1, showing a growing trend during 2000-2010. Except Qinghai Province, the static efficiency evaluation index of the other 11 provinces remained at a high level, i.e., in the stage of decreasing returns to scale production. In order to promote the development of tourism, those provinces should introduce new technology and improve their independent ability. In all input indicators tourism practitioners were quite redundant, having a 17.33% room for improvement; in all output indicators the insufficiency rate was relatively small.