<p>With rising tourist inflows exerting pressure on natural resources and emissions, understanding the role of sustainable tourism and information and communication technology (ICT) in mitigating environmental challenges has become critical. This study, thus, investigates the asymmetric relationship between sustainable tourism, ICT and environmental quality in China. Using data from 2000 to 2021 and applying the Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (Q-ARDL) approach, the analysis captures both short and long-run dynamics across different levels of CO₂ emissions, employed as a proxy for environment quality. The findings reveal that sustainable tourism reduces CO₂ emissions significantly at both lower and higher quantiles, indicating its environmental benefits are most evident in contexts of very low and very high emissions. ICT also shows asymmetric effects; its short-run impact is limited due to transitional energy costs, but in the long run, ICT adoption consistently improves environmental quality through efficiency gains and digital platforms. These results confirm nonlinear dynamics aligned with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), emphasizing that sustainable tourism and ICT are dynamic levers for long-term ecological improvement rather than uniform solutions. The study contributes to theory by integrating Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Tripple Bottom Line (TBL) and EKC perspectives and offers practical insights for policymakers to design threshold-specific, ICT-enabled eco-tourism strategies in China and comparable emerging economies.</p>