Purpose - It is important to figure out the relationship between tourism carbon emissions and tourism economics for a healthy tourism development. Research design, data, and methodology - Data of this study are collected from 27 provinces (cities) of China. Tourist consumption stripping coefficient is used to calculate tourism carbon emissions. SBM-Undesirable model is used to measure the efficiency of tourism economics under the constraint of tourism carbon emissions. Results - The results show that: during the year of 2005-2015, there are obvious differences in totals and intensities of tourism carbon emissions among 27 provinces and cities which can be divided into three areas. There is a high possibility of underestimating the actual efficiency of tourism economics by leaving tourism carbon emissions out of account, and a high inefficiency caused by tourism carbon emissions will lead a low efficiency of tourism economics. Conclusions - The development of tourism should give consideration to both economic and environmental benefits, and reduce the inefficiency caused by tourism carbon emissions to improve efficiency of tourism economics by improving the level of technical efficiency and promoting technological progress.