For public tourist attractions, financial viability heavily depends upon sufficient government funding. However, research on government allocations has historically been quite rare. This study addressed this relevant gap by using a panel dataset of 171 public attractions in China from 2015 to 2018. Double-hurdle models and quantile regressions were employed to examine the determinants of government funding for public attractions. The findings suggested that attraction attributes played an influential role in the amount of government appropriations, but they were less impactful on the attractions’ likelihood of receiving government funding. Besides, it was revealed that attraction attributes exerted stronger impacts as attractions’ government funding level increased. The local economic condition was also a significant factor of both the possibility and the amount of government funding.