Objective/Meaning  The integration of agricultural culture and tourism is an important way to promote the industrial transformation and upgrading and the growth of the national economy. Exploring the impact of the integration of agriculture, culture and tourism on the growth of tourism economy, aims to provide reference for better promoting the high-quality development of tourism economy in China.

Methods/Procedures  Based on the provincial panel data from 2010 to 2023, the two-way fixed effect model, the mediating effect model and the moderating effect model were used to analyze the effect and mechanism of the integration of agriculture, culture and tourism on the tourism economic growth.

Results/Conclusions The results showed that: (1) The integration of agriculture, culture and tourism had a significant positive impact on the tourism economic growth. This conclusion remained valid even after addressing endogeneity issues and conducting multiple robustness tests. (2) The integration of agriculture, culture and tourism could promote the tourism economic growth by accelerating the tourism technology innovation. (3) The upgrading of industrial structure could positively regulate the impact of the integration of agriculture, culture and tourism on tourism economic growth, but the moderating effect of the rationalization of industrial structure was not significant. (4) The heterogeneity analysis revealed that the integration of agriculture, culture, and tourism had a more pronounced promotional effect on the tourism economic growth in western provinces, provinces with low transportation density, and provinces with low levels of agricultural industrialization.