Air pollution and tourism growth relationship: exploring regional dynamics in five European countries through an EKC model

Abstract

The present study intends to explore the relationship between tourism growth and air pollution at a regional level for five important tourism European destinations: France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy. Most of the studies found in the literature examine this relationship on a national scale and focus only on the CO 2 pollutant, which is a greenhouse gas but not a critical pollutant in terms of air quality and human exposure. This research focuses on a regional basis (NUTS 2 classification) and takes into account the main critical pollutants in terms of urban air pollution (namely: NOx, PM10, and PM2.5), and considers 10 years, from 2009 until 2018. This work aims to investigate evidence of a tourism-induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for the countries through the construction of five panels, one for each country, including different variables: the Gross Domestic Product, the energy consumption, and the number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments from both domestic and foreign tourists. The Levin-Lin-Chu unit root test proves the variables to be stationary, while the Pedroni cointegration test shows that they are integrated. The pooled OLS estimator is employed throughout the countries to check the relationship among the variables. Results reveal that the tourism-induced EKC hypothesis is not validated for any of the countries. The findings also show that in Portugal, Italy, and Greece, there is a negative relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, while mixed evidence is found for France and Spain. Moreover, differences in the impacts of international and domestic tourists on air pollution are found: foreign tourists negatively impact emissions, while domestic ones increase them. This result is clear for Spain, Greece, and Italy. The Granger panel causality test is then conducted to see the causality among the variables.

Revisiting the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in the MENA Region: The Roles of International Tourist Arrivals, Energy Consumption and Trade Openness

“…In the 2000s, an increasing volume of environmental protection regulations appeared in the tourism policy agenda [33] and the link between tourism expansion and the EKC acquired prominence. While much research on tourism-induced EKC has used this theory as a proxy for CO 2 emissions from environmental deterioration [11,34], few studies have integrated two or three theories to investigate the link between international tourist arrivals and CO 2 emissions [1,7]. Since international tourism depends on many internal and external factors, such as safety and security [35], accessibility, policy stability, freedom of mobility, pull and push factors, etc.…”

Environmental sustainability through aggregate demand behavior – Does knowledge economy have global responsibility?

“…Moreover, studies from Allard et al (2018) for a panel of 74 countries, Benedek and Ferto † (2020) for the countries where forest cover increased and Gyamfi et al (2021), for E7 countries, have confirmed N-shaped EKC. Studies from Ganda (2019) for South Africa, Pata and Caglar (2021) for China, Ciarlantini et al (2022) for five European countries and Massagony and Budiono (2023) have not validated the EKC. The stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology (STIRPAT) framework also tests the impact of economic activities on environmental quality.…”

Exploring the Effects of Tourism Development on Air Pollution: Evidence from the Panel Smooth Transition Regression Model

“…Yildırım et al (2021) tested the tourism-EKC hypothesis for 15 Mediterranean countries and found that tourist arrivals increased carbon emissions until a certain threshold was reached and then decreased carbon emissions above this level [ 38 ]. Ciarlantini et al (2022) explored the relationship between air pollution and tourism growth in five European countries and failed to validate the tourism-EKC hypothesis for any of the countries [ 27 ].…”

“…Tian et al (2021) found that a 1% increase in tourism development leads to a 0.05% decrease in CO 2 emissions in the long run in G20 economies [10]. Ciarlantini et al (2022) found some differences in the impacts of international and local tourism on air pollution, that is, that international tourism negatively affects NO x , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 emissions, while local tourism increases their emissions [27].…”