<p>Eco-efficiency serves as a pivotal measure for assessing tourism sustainability, and its enhancement is essential for facilitating green transformation in the industry. While existing studies on tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin have primarily focused on static efficiency assessments and determinant analyses, limited attention has been paid to spatiotemporal evolution, regional disparities, and convergence patterns. This study took 56 cities in the Yellow River Basin as samples and employed a super-efficiency SBM model to analyze regional disparities, dynamic evolution, and convergence of tourism eco-efficiency within the basin. The findings reveal the following: (1) Tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin is generally low with a declining trend, exhibiting a spatial configuration of midstream &gt; downstream &gt; upstream. Inter-regional disparities continue to widen, with the Gini coefficient indicating that the gap between upstream and midstream regions is the smallest, while the disparity between downstream and midstream regions is the largest. Within each region, intra-regional differences are greatest in the downstream region, followed by the midstream and upstream regions. (2) Dynamic evolution demonstrates rightward distributional shifts and bimodal distribution characteristics, reflecting pronounced polarization: some cities achieve efficiency breakthroughs while others remain stagnant at low efficiency levels. (3) All regions exhibit significant absolute and conditional β-convergence, with the midstream region converging most rapidly and the upstream region most slowly, while the overall system demonstrates positive spatial correlation effects. These findings lay the foundation for developing tailored regional tourism strategies and provide actionable recommendations for improving the quality of tourism development in the Yellow River Basin.</p>