Abstract
The tourism footprint family comprises the tourism ecological footprint (TEF), the tourism carbon footprint (TCF) and the tourism water footprint (TWF). The tourism footprint represents an important tool for quantitatively assessing the impact of tourism activities on the ecosystem of a tourist destination. This paper systematically reviews the relevant literature on TEF, TCF and TWF, analyses and summarizes the main progress and failures in the analytical frameworks, research methods, measurement results, environmental impacts and reductions in the tourism footprint. This paper also proposes areas for further developing the tourism footprint research, including unifying the analytical frameworks and boundaries of the tourism footprint, distinguishing the geographical scope of the tourism footprint effectively, improving the process of analyzing the environmental impact of the tourism footprint, measuring the tourism footprint scientifically and roundly, performing space-time calculations of the tourism footprint, and expanding the tourism footprint family by introducing new members. Accordingly, this paper is devoted to the continued study of the tourism footprint.
Highlights
Tourism activities, as a part of the human lifestyle and a form of ecological consumption, have a profound impact on ecosystems in tourist destination areas by appropriating and consuming sightseeing resources, travel facilities, and tourism services
Consistent with this focus, many tourism footprint analyses have emerged in recent years, including tourism ecological footprint (TEF) analysis, tourism carbon footprint (TCF) analysis, and tourism water footprint (TWF) analysis, which share the research target of better integrating tourism industry development with the protection of the ecological environment
Analyses emphasize specific evaluations (TCF analysis focuses on the effects of carbon emissions from tourism activities on climate change, and TWF analysis focuses on the effects of water consumption from tourism activities on water resources), which have the advantage of being thorough evaluations
Summary
As a part of the human lifestyle and a form of ecological consumption, have a profound impact on ecosystems (such as soil erosion, air and marine pollution, and natural habit loss) in tourist destination areas by appropriating and consuming sightseeing resources, travel facilities (such as roads and airports), and tourism services (such as resorts, restaurants, hotels, marinas, shops, and golf courses). Increasing numbers of researchers, governments and international organizations have been considering the impacts of large-scale tourism industries on the environment in light of the rapid development of the global tourism industry and the burgeoning environmental issues of climate change and water resource scarcity. Consistent with this focus, many tourism footprint analyses have emerged in recent years, including tourism ecological footprint (TEF) analysis, tourism carbon footprint (TCF) analysis, and tourism water footprint (TWF) analysis, which share the research target of better integrating tourism industry development with the protection of the ecological environment. The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant achievements of the tourism footprint family, summarize its progress, analyze its shortcomings, and propose areas for further research on the tourism footprint
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