As a representative form of informal institutions, culture plays a vital role in shaping international trade. Exploring the measurement of cultural factors and uncovering their multiple channels of influence remain central issues in the literature. Cultural norms are not static. People can build trust and learn about the ethics of foreign countries from repeated interactions. However, most of the proxies for cultural proximity in studies on international economics exhibit few variations over a limited sample period, making it difficult to capture the dynamic evolution characteristics of cultural norms.

This paper investigates the impact of cultural identity on international tourism trade by analyzing China’s film consumption and outbound tourism markets from 2005 to 2021. The findings show that higher box-office performance of imported films in the mainland of China significantly boosts outbound tourism to the countries that produce those films. Mechanism testing suggests that the positive effect arises from improved attention allocation and reduced cultural distance between the two countries. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the effect is more pronounced for films from countries geographically and culturally closer to China, and from those with higher levels of cooperation, economic development, and digital infrastructure. Sensory-stimulating and emotionally resonant films both effectively stimulate tourism. In addition, we show that several other cultural products have a comparable impact.

The policy implications of this paper are as follows: First, optimize the mechanism for introducing cultural products and promote two-way cultural and tourism cooperation. Second, strengthen public opinion guidance and enhance the positive guidance of film effects. Third, enhance the attractiveness of domestic tourism by leveraging digitalization and film and television dissemination. Fourth, promote differentiated international tourism cooperation for countries along the Belt and Road and those with higher income levels. Fifth, guide residents to consume rationally, optimize the tourism expenditure structure, and further promote the deep integration of the culture-tourism industry with other sectors.

This paper contributes to the literature in three ways: First, it adds to the literature on cultural and economic development, particularly that on the relation between cultural imports and international tourism. Second, it provides several policy implications for optimizing the domestic industrial structure and promoting consumption upgrading. Third, it introduces a dynamic proxy—imported film box office—to measure cultural identity, addressing the limitations of prior static cultural indicators.