Poverty is a chronic problem all over the world. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in 2012, the Chinese government has continuously increased its poverty alleviation efforts. In addition, absolute poverty in China was eliminated by the end of 2020. Tourism has played an important role in poverty alleviation. To explore the role of the tourism industry in reducing poverty, this paper takes the Liupan Mountain area of Gansu Province in western China, as a case site. An input–output evaluation index system was constructed, and a Super-SBM model was used to evaluate the tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in 40 districts and counties in the Liupan Mountain area from 2009 to 2018. The results show that the overall starting point of tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the study area was high, which needed to be further optimized. The difference in tourism poverty alleviation efficiency among districts and counties tended to decrease in the time series. The restrictive factors were the lack of technological progress and lack of innovation. The spatial distribution of tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the study area presented a pattern of high in the east and low in the west, high in the north and low in the south. In the future, the tourism poverty alleviation efficiency in the concentrated and contiguous destitute areas of the Liupan Mountain area in Gansu Province could be improved by cultivating the tourism industry, strengthening technological innovation, cultivating core growth poles, and exerting radiation effects.
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