At present, COVID-19 is seriously affecting the economic development of the hotel industry, and at the same time, the world is vigorously calling for “carbon emission mitigation”. Under these two factors, tourist hotels are in urgent need of effective tools to balance economic and social contributions with ecological and environmental impacts. Therefore, this paper takes Chinese tourist hotels as the research object and constructs a research framework for Chinese tourist hotels by constructing a Super-SBM Non-Oriented model. We measured the economic efficiency and eco-efficiency of Chinese tourist hotels from 2000 to 2019; explored spatial-temporal evolution patterns of their income, carbon emissions, eco-efficiency, and economic efficiency through spatial hotspot analysis and center of gravity analysis; and identified the spatial agglomeration characteristics of such hotels through the econometric panel Tobit model to identify the different driving factors inside and outside the tourist hotel system. The following results were obtained: (1) the eco-efficiency of China’s tourist hotels is higher than the economic efficiency, which is in line with the overall Kuznets curve theory, but the income and carbon emissions have not yet been decoupled; (2) most of China’s tourist hotels are crudely developed with much room for improving the economic efficiency, and most of the provincial and regional tourist hotels are at a low-income level, but the carbon emissions are still on the increase; and (3) income, labor, carbon emissions, waste emissions, and water consumption are the internal drivers of China’s tourist hotels, while industrial structure, urbanization rate, energy efficiency, and information technology are the external drivers of China’s tourist hotels. The research results provide a clear path for the reduction in carbon emissions and the improvement of the eco-efficiency of Chinese tourist hotels. Under the backdrop of global climate change and the post-COVID-19 era, the research framework and conclusions provide references for countries with new economies similar to China and countries that need to quickly restore the hotel industry.

Inbound tourism has an important impact on regional eco-efficiency. This paper uses the panel data of 31 provincial administrative units in China from 2005 to 2019; uses the improved DEA model to measure the regional ecological efficiency; and uses the panel threshold model to investigate input, output, and efficiency from the perspective of green technology innovation. Then, it explores the heterogeneous effects of inbound tourism on ecological efficiency. This paper finds that cross-border tourism has a positive impact on the ecological efficiency of tourist destinations. However, the degree of influence varies and will be changed with the level of regional green innovation. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) From an overall perspective, inbound tourism has a significant positive effect on ecological efficiency. (2) With the increase in green innovation investment and output, the promotion effect of inbound tourism on regional ecological efficiency first increases and then decreases. (3) The higher the green innovation efficiency, the greater the promotion effect of inbound tourism on ecological efficiency. Therefore, the Chinese government should encourage the development of inbound tourism, adopt greener innovative technologies that are cleaner and more environmentally friendly, and enhance the welfare effect of tourism on green economy.