Abstract: Carbon emission efficiency of tourism industry is an important index to evaluate the link between economic growth of tourism and ecological environment. The measurement and analysis of carbon emission efficiency is the basic support for energy saving and sustainable development of tourism industry. By using the 'bottom-up' approach, the energy consumption and carbon emission of tourism industry and its subsectors in China were estimated from 2001 to 2015 (the data do not include Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet Autonomous Region). Based on the panel data about provincial input-output of tourism industry, the carbon emission efficiency of China's tourism is measured by the SBM model considering the unexpected output. In addition, the spatial autocorrelation is applied to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of carbon emission efficiency of tourism. At last, the Malmquist index is used to evaluate the dynamic trend of carbon emission efficiency of tourism industry. The results show that carbon emission efficiency of China's tourism industry is low, with an average of 60%, during the study period. In each year, the number of provinces with the best production frontier (carbon emission efficiency of tourism is 1) is less, there are only 2 to 4 provinces per year and efficiency of most provinces needs to be improved. There are obvious provincial differences in the carbon emission efficiency of tourism industry. The efficiency of the East, Middle and West of China has gradient difference, forming the spatial pattern of 'high in eastern China and low in western China'. The Moran's I index and the LISA clustering show carbon emission efficiency of tourism industry has significant characteristics in spatial correlation which are still strengthening constantly, and forming 'high-high' type and 'low-low' type gathering area. The spatial linkage pattern of carbon emission efficiency of tourism has not formed. Except for 2004, the Malmquist index is greater than 1 from 2001 to 2015. The average of Malmquist index is 1.195, as a result, the overall efficiency of carbon emission of tourism continues to improve. The promotion of carbon emission efficiency of tourism industry comes from technological progress and technical efficiency. Technological progress is the main contribution factor to promote the efficiency of carbon emission of tourism industry. It is expected that the above conclusions can provide valuable reference for the improvement carbon emission efficiency of China's tourism industry, and provide a theoretical basis for energy saving, emission reduction and sustainable coordinated development of tourism economy.