Against the backdrop of the continuous expansion of the tourism industry and the in-depth advancement of ecological civilization construction, improving tourism eco-efficiency has become a pivotal pathway to achieving the goals of high-quality development of the tourism industry and the construction of Beautiful China. Taking 30 provincial-level regions in China (excluding Xizang Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) from 2011 to 2023 as the research sample, this paper measures tourism eco-efficiency by applying the Super-SBM model with undesirable outputs, and identifies its key influencing factors by adopting the panel Tobit model. The findings reveal that scientific and technological level, human capital and environmental regulation exert a significant positive impact on tourism eco-efficiency, while economic development level has a notable negative effect, which reflects that an extensive tourism growth model at the expense of resources and the environment still exists in some regions at present.