Climate‐Smart Destination Marketing and Community‐Based Tourism for Socio‐Economic Revitalization in Degraded Landscapes

ABSTRACT

As the global tourism industry confronts the existential imperatives of the Anthropocene, the remediation of degraded landscapes through regenerative economic models has emerged as a critical frontier in sustainability science. This research presents a rigorous empirical examination of the “restoration–revenue” paradigm, investigating the synergistic coupling mechanism between climate‐smart destination marketing, community‐based tourism, and ecological restoration. Focusing on the Bijie Ecological Demonstration Zone in Guizhou Province, Western China (27.2° N, 105.3° E), the study uses a high‐resolution longitudinal dataset spanning 2014 to 2023 to evaluate the region's transition from ecological fragility to socio‐economic resilience. Methodologically, the analysis employs a coupling coordination degree model to quantify the synchronization between the distinct subsystems of environmental quality and the tourism economy. The empirical results reveal a decisive structural transformation within the study area. In the baseline year of 2014, the region exhibited systemic dissonance, characterized by a vegetation cover rate of merely 28.5% and limited community participation at 12.0%, resulting in a coordination score of approximately 0.3. However, following the strategic alignment of policy in 2016, a robust positive feedback loop was established. By 2023, the system achieved high‐quality coordination with a score of roughly 0.8, as visitor arrivals reached 9.8 million and average household income surged to 23,400 CNY. Crucially, the study isolates a resilience mechanism during the COVID‐19 shock of 2020; despite a revenue contraction to 5.1 billion CNY, natural capital accumulation persisted, with vegetation cover expanding to 48.0%, effectively decoupling ecological health from temporary economic volatility. Furthermore, the analysis confirms a strong correlation () between the climate‐smart index and visitor influx, validating the efficacy of branding environmental stewardship as a core value proposition. These findings offer empirical validation for the “Two Mountains” theory, demonstrating that integrating ecological recovery with community agency creates a scalable, data‐driven pathway for revitalizing marginal regions while securing long‐term economic prosperity.