Can ESG performance enhance companies’ competitiveness?

Harmonizing environmental protection and economic efficiency is crucial to the tourism industry’s sustainable development. Can Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices constitute a key path through which tourism companies can build long-term competitiveness? This paper takes Chinese listed tourism companies from 2009 to 2023 as samples to explore the impact of ESG performance on the competitiveness of tourism companies and its potential mechanisms. Findings show that overall ESG performance promoted firms’ competitiveness, with significant positive effects at the social (S) and corporate governance (G) levels and negative effects at the environmental (E) level. Internal control quality mediated enhancements in ESG performance and competitiveness; financial constraints positively moderated these outcomes. Heterogeneity analysis revealed ESG’s competitiveness-enhancing effect to be more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, companies in eastern China, and smaller firms.