<p>PSM-DID matching results.</p>

China’s ongoing digital transformation, supported by proactive government policies, is fundamentally reshaping urban tourism through strategic development of digital infrastructure. This study employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model, taking the Broadband China policy as a quasi-natural experiment, to examine the driving effects and mechanisms of digital infrastructure development on emerging forms of urban digital tourism entrepreneurship. The results show that: (1) digital infrastructure development can facilitate the development of emerging forms for urban digital tourism entrepreneurship. Even after controlling for endogeneity, other policy intervention, and robustness in parallel trend testing, the outcome remains unchanged. Digital infrastructure has the potential to foster the growth of new types of urban digital tourism businesses by increasing the concentration of digital talent, the rate of technological innovation and application, and the level of government support. The driving effect is stronger in cities that have exceptional cultural value, well-allocated administrative resources, and excellent tourist resources. Coordination and information exchange in industrial chains are beneficial for nearby regions, but they pose a threat of marginalization to areas that aren’t immediately adjacent due to the impacts of resource siphoning. Therefore, the government should promote the transformation of urban tourism into intelligent and convenient, establish cross-city tourism alliances, and form a complementary mode of “technology and resources.” Simultaneously, it should make use of digital technology to accurately match the characteristics of the city and guide operators of the industry to efficiently make use of digital technology to identify market opportunities, integrate resources, and unleash the new kinetic energy of the industry’s development.

在积极有为的政府政策支撑下，中国持续推进的数字化转型正通过战略性布局数字基础设施，从根本上重塑城市旅游业的发展格局。本研究以“宽带中国”政策为准自然实验，采用双重差分（Difference-in-Differences, DID）模型，探究数字基础设施发展对城市数字旅游新业态创业的驱动效应与作用机制。研究结果表明：其一，数字基础设施建设能够助力城市数字旅游新业态创业发展。即便在控制内生性问题、剔除其他政策干扰，并通过平行趋势检验完成稳健性验证后，该结论依然成立。数字基础设施可通过提升数字人才集聚水平、技术创新与应用速率以及政府扶持力度，推动城市数字旅游新型经营主体的成长。该驱动效应在具备独特文化价值、优质行政资源配置以及丰富旅游资源的城市中更为突出。产业链协同与信息交流对邻近地区具有正向溢出效应，但受资源虹吸效应影响，会对非邻近地区形成边际化威胁。据此，政府应推动城市旅游业向智能化、便捷化转型，组建跨城市旅游联盟，构建“技术+资源”的互补发展模式。同时，应依托数字技术精准匹配城市发展特质，引导行业经营者高效运用数字技术挖掘市场机遇、整合资源，激活行业发展的新动能。