The Tourism Sector's Impact on Carbon Emissions

Abstract

The tourism sector is generally perceived as a green industry because of its seemingly clean value chain activities. However, despite these perceptions, there have been doubts regarding the environmental impacts of tourism. Past studies have considered these environmental effects due to increasing concerns about global warming and climate change. This chapter attempts to analyze the effects of tourism value chain activities on carbon emissions in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve for G20 countries using a ten-year dataset. The results confirmed the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. The findings indicate that, despite increases in energy use and investment inflow, tourism activities decrease carbon emissions. The study concluded that tourism sector activities, foreign trade, and labor force participation all have statistically significant favorable effects on carbon emissions. Given the growing global transitions within the sector, the study reckons the sector's need to focus on sustainable tourism as a development and improvement strategy.