Research progress, trends, and updates on the relationship between tourism, economic growth and energy consumption: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many authors have tried to understand the relationship between tourism activities and economic growth, especially since the development of the Tourism Driven Growth Hypothesis (TLHG) (Balaguer & Cantavella-Jordá, 2002). However, it is becoming increasingly important to analyse the current and future economic, social and environmental impacts of this activity on communities. Tourism is now considered from an environmental perspective (Balsalobre-Lorente & Leitão, 2020), which has led to the concept of sustainable tourism. In this sense, energy consumption is one of the indicators that can help to understand the impact of tourism on the environment. Especially in cities, mass tourism has a direct impact on the consumption and use of energy from renewable and non-renewable sources. However, there is not much work that attempts to examine the three dimensions (tourism, economy and environment) together. Therefore, the actual mechanism behind the behaviour of the ‘green TLGH’ is still quite unknown. The aim of this study is to provide a bibliographic review of the main studies that examine the relationships between tourism, energy consumption and economic growth. To this end, the bibliometric method of analysis is used, which aims to understand the main quantitative indicators of the studies examined, focusing on the importance of including the environment as an endogenous factor. Bibliometrics ‘is based on the search for statistically regular behaviours over time in the different elements related to the production and consumption of scientific information’ (Ardanuy Baró, 2012, p. 9).