Abstract
This paper introduces energy consumption and carbon emission into the analysis framework of the green productivity of tourism. By comparing and analyzing the two main methods used to evaluate the energy consumption and carbon emission estimations of tourism, namely, the “top-down” and “bottom-up” method, and considering the availability of data, the “bottom-up” method was adopted to evaluate the energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in the Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ). Then, using the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index in the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, the green productivity of the tourism in 11 provinces and cities in the YREZ from 2006 to 2015 was measured. The empirical results show that: (1) The energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in the YREZ have increased steadily over the past 10 years, which has caused a certain degree of pollution to the environment, indicating that tourism is no longer a “smoke-free industry”; (2) there are significant provincial differences between the energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in the YREZ, with Shanghai always ranking first, while Guizhou and Yunnan ranks last, which represents that the tourism economic development level is positively correlated with the tourism energy consumption and carbon emissions; (3) the green productivity of tourism in the YREZ shows a fluctuating increasing trend in the past 10 years, and technological progress has become the main reason for its growth in green productivity; and (4) the green productivity of tourism in 11 provinces and cities in the YREZ can be divided into three types: Progressive type of tourism green development, stagnant type of tourism green development, and declining type of tourism green development. Consequently, different types of provinces should explore effective dependency paths based on their own conditions.
Highlights
The Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) is an important link between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which covers more than 20% of the land area in China, and the proportion of GDP and population in this area is more than 40% of the whole country
It was found that the energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in the entire YREZ have been increasing from 2006 to 2015
Over the past 10 years, the annual growth rate of domestic tourism income and inbound tourism income in the YREZ is 20.86% and 10.09%, respectively, which shows that the energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in the YREZ will maintain continuous growth with the development of the tourism economy
Summary
The YREZ is an important link between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which covers more than 20% of the land area in China, and the proportion of GDP and population in this area is more than 40% of the whole country. TFP can reflect the growth trend of high-end production factors, such as technology, management, and knowledge, and their contribution to economic development. Their growth rate is often regarded as an indicator of scientific and technological progress. In the field of tourism, some scholars regard carbon emission efficiency as an important indicator to measure the GTFP of tourism [17] Most of these studies only take traditional capital and labor factors as input indicators to measure the TFP of tourism, and less consideration is given to the resources and environment factors that are closely related to the sustainable development of tourism [18]. It enriches the theory of green tourism efficiency, and has great significance as a reference for the study of green tourism efficiency in other provinces and cities both in China and internationally
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