RETRACTED ARTICLE: Modelling the interaction between tourism, energy consumption, pollutant emissions and urbanization: renewed evidence from panel VAR

Abstract

In less than two decades, the global tourism industry has overtaken the construction industry as one of the biggest polluters, accounting for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions as reported by the United National World Trade Organization (UNWTO 2018). This position resonates the consensus of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Consequently, research into the causal link between emissions and the tourism industry has increased significantly focusing extensively on top earners from the industry. However, few studies have thoroughly assessed this relationship for small island economies that are highly dependent on tourism. Hence, this study assessed the causal relationship between CO2 emissions, real GDP per capita (RGDP) and the tourism industry. The analysis is conducted for seven tourism-dependent countries for the period 1995 to 2014 using panel VAR approach, with support from fully modified ordinary least square and pooled mean group–autoregressive distributed lag models. Unit root tests confirm that all variables are stationary at first difference. Our VAR Granger causality/block exogeneity Wald test results show a unidirectional causality flowing from tourism to CO2 emission, RGDP and energy consumption, but a bi-directional causality exists between tourism and urbanization. This implies that in countries that depend on tourism, the behaviour of CO2 emission, RGDP and energy consumption can be predicted by the volume of tourist arrivals, but not the other way around. The impulse response analysis also shows that the responses of tourism to shocks in CO2 appear negative within the 1st year, positive within the 2nd and 3rd years but revert to equilibrium in the fourth year. Finally, the reaction of tourism to shocks in energy consumption is similar to its reaction to shocks in RGDP. Tourism responds positively to shocks in urbanization throughout the periods. These outcomes were resonated by the Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality analysis where the growth-induced tourism hypothesis is validated as well as feedback causality observed between tourism and pollutant emission and urbanization and pollutant emission in the blocks over the sampled period. Consequently, this study draws pertinent energy and tourism policy implications for sustainable tourism on the panel over their growth trajectory without compromise for green environment.

An investigation into the anthropogenic nexus among consumption of energy, tourism, and economic growth: do economic policy uncertainties matter?

“…Unlike economic growth, tourists' arrivals are one of the drivers of environmental degradation in these countries. The arrival of tourist encourages an increase in tourism-induced activities which contribute to the degradation of the environment such as transportation services and construction of accommodation and other tourist facilities (Adedoyin and Bekun 2020). Also, most of these countries still harbor non-renewable (NRE) sources in their energy mix (Table 5).…”

Modelling Causal Relationships Among Tourism, Energy, Co2 Emissions and Economic Growth

“…Many everyday activities produce significant amounts of GHG; therefore this study introduces additional variables such as tourism industry, energy consumption and economic growth. The current theoretical setting of the model is based on the previous work of Adedoyin and Bekun (2020) and Shakouri et al (2017). Our study differs from Isik and Radulescu (2017) which focused on investigating causal linkage amid tourist arrivals, renewable energy and other variables.…”

“…The outcomes suggest a long-run relationship between analyzed variables. The analysis of tourism-energy-growth-CO2 emissions nexus has been conducted for seven tourism-dependent countries by Adedoyin and Bekun (2020). Granger causality tests suggest a unidirectional causality flowing from tourism to pollutant emission, economic growth and energy consumption.…”

Do Tourism Activities and Urbanization Drive Material Consumption in the OECD Countries? A Quantile Regression Approach

“…Tourism development leads to increases in infrastructure construction, population, and the three inputs of urbanization suggested by Decker et al [32]. Several studies have affirmed that the activity in the tourism industry affects energy [38][39][40][41][42], carbon emission [43,44], and income [45,46]; yet very few studies have investigated the relationship between tourism and domestic material consumption. Li et al's [33] study on Beijing tourism highlighted that the Olympics increased business and tourism travel to the country.…”