Abstract
Tourism, as one economic activity, results in a full range of environmental impacts globally as well as in China. However, the evaluation of environmental impacts is insufficient because of the strong correlation effect between tourism and other industries. This study attempted to assess the environmental impact and cost of the tourism-induced pollutant emissions (in a broad sense) at the national scale through constructing the environmental-economic input-output model. Our results suggested that the China’s total emission of CO2, NOx, SOx related to tourism industry increased from 42 × 106 t, 162 kt, 345 kt in 1995 to 157 × 106 t, 527 kt, 854 kt in 2009. The indirect CO2, NOx, and SOx emissions of tourism and related industries were nearly 6.8–11 times of their direct emission in travel agency. Most of these indirect emissions (73% of CO2 in 2009, 54% of NOx in 1995, 62% of SOx in 2009) are derived from the energy plants and industrial sectors. The sustainable tourism should largely depend on the realization of sustainable mobility and transportation, through the low-emission behavior and energy-saving technology. The emission reduction cost of tourism industry in China was 30,170 and 172,812 million CNY in 1995 and 2009, accounting for nearly 14% of the total tourism revenue.
Highlights
The tourism industry has become one of the largest industries worldwide
In 2019, the combined contribution of tourism to global gross domestic product (GDP) was 10.4%, while employees working in the field accounted for 10% of the global workforce according to the estimation of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) [1]
The CO2 emission increased from 24 × 106 t in 1995 to 105 × 106 t in 2009 with the annual increase rate being 10.3%, the emission intensity decreased from 1524 g/dollar in 1995 to 827 g/dollar in 2009, with the annual increase rate being −4.0% (Figure 3a)
Summary
The tourism industry has become one of the largest industries worldwide. In 2019, the combined contribution of tourism to global gross domestic product (GDP) was 10.4%, while employees working in the field accounted for 10% of the global workforce according to the estimation of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) [1]. Tourism has begun to be acknowledged as a significant contributor to the increase in environmental externalities in recent decades: 24% of protected objects were damaged, 12% of tourism resources began to degenerate, 13% of water resources were polluted, and 40% of garbage was hazardous in the natural reserve areas in developed countries [2]. The energy consumption and CO2 emissions related to tourism were calculated to account for 3.2% and 5.3% of global amounts, respectively [4]. According to the recent assessment, the carbon footprint of global tourism, including aviation emissions, ground transportation emissions, hotel catering emissions, may account for about 8% of all carbon emissions, two times more than previously estimated; the carbon footprint of tourism in the United States, China, and Germany is the Sustainability 2021, 13, 604.
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