Abstract: Against the backdrop of intensifying global uncertainties, enhancing regional economic resilience has become a crucial driver for high-quality regional economic development. Existing literature predominantly examines the impact of separate cultural and tourism industries on regional economic resilience, paying insufficient attention to the catalytic role of cultural-tourism integration. Drawing on economic resilience theory, this study employs panel data from 31 Chinese provinces (2011—2021) to empirically investigate the effects, mechanisms, heterogeneity, and threshold characteristics of cultural-tourism integration on regional economic resilience. Key findings reveal: (1) Cultural-tourism integration significantly enhances regional economic resilience, with results robust to endogeneity and robustness tests; (2) Industrial structure upgrading and consumption expansion serve as critical transmission channels; (3) The effect is more pronounced in eastern China compared to central and western regions; (4) Government support and technological innovation exhibit threshold effects, progressively strengthening the resilience-enhancing impact. Accordingly, we propose cultivating integrated cultural-tourism formats, deepening digital applications, optimizing policy environments, and implementing differentiated strategies to amplify the resilience-building role of cultural-tourism integration.

Key words: cultural tourism integration, regional economic resilience, industrial structure optimizing, expansion and improvement of consumption