Information and communication technology (ICT) drives tourism development. Utilising the e-commerce pilot city policy (CNEP) as a quasi-natural experiment, this study explores the effect of ICT on tourism development and the transmission mechanism. A multi-period difference-in-differences model is used to analyse panel data from 280 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019. The results show that the CNEP promotes tourism development. The transmission mechanism indicates that the CNEP promotes tourism development by reducing tourism environmental costs and increasing tourism network attention. Additionally, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that the CNEP has a more significant effect on promoting tourism development in large and big-internet-scale cities. These findings provide crucial empirical evidence for the tourism-driven impact of ICT and meaningful policy implications for the tourism industry’s digital transformation.
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