Based on 2001-2009 panel data of 30 provinces in China mainland, this paper comprehensively applies the methods of pooled ols (POLS), fixed effect (FE), random effect(RE), to make an empirical test of the relationship of financial development and tourism economic growth. Results show that (1)Financial development has a significant positive effect on tourism economic growth, and the robustness analysis provides a strongly empirical support for this conclusion; (2) Extroverted economy, transportation infrastructure, tourism resources endowment are significantly driving strength of tourism economic growth, and each of the three has a positive adjustment function between financial development and tourism economic growth; (3) The investigation of the different areas reveals that the influence of financial development on tourism economic growth presents regional differences, the positive influencing strength on East China is greater than that on Central China; and (4) To the West, the growth of tourism economy depends on a single growth model, which is resource-driving model; moreover, the driving effect of financial development on the growth of western tourism economy is not obvious.