Breaking the Aging Dilemma: A Study on High-Quality Development Models for Pension Tourism Industry Driven by New Quality Productive Forces

In the context of the strategic response to population aging, the high-quality development of the elderly tourism industry plays a crucial role in addressing the structural contradictions between economic growth and insufficient elderly care. Under the driving force of new-quality productive forces, scientifically selecting development models has become the key to achieving high-quality development in the elderly tourism industry. Based on multiple case studies, a theoretical model for the high-quality development of the elderly tourism industry driven by new-type productive forces has been constructed. Taking China's 30 provinces (regions and municipalities) as the research object, the occurrence of high-quality development models in the elderly tourism industry across provinces has been examined. Additionally, a multiple regression model has been constructed to empirically test the effects of development model influencing factors. The research results show that there are three types of high-quality development models in China's elderly tourism industry: technology innovation-driven, business model upgrading-driven, and talent transformation-driven. The high-quality development model of China's elderly tourism industry exhibits regional differentiation characteristics. The technology innovation-driven model is prevalent in eastern, central, and western regions, the business model upgrade-driven model primarily occurs in economically developed provinces, and the talent transformation-driven model is concentrated in central and western regions. The selection of high-quality development models for the elderly tourism industry is influenced by a combination of internal and external factors, including human capital, industrial efficiency, the fiscal burden of an aging population, industrial structure upgrading, R&D investment, economic development levels, government support, marketization levels, locational conditions, and urban development. It is necessary to comprehensively consider the combined influence of internal and external factors to select an appropriate development model.