Abstract
Purpose Tourism may have important positive and negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts. However, cultural and natural resources are also the base to the development of competitive destinations and changes in these resources can have an important impact on tourism development. Despite the considerable literature regarding the impacts of tourism, a limited number of studies examine the impact of the environment on tourism, specifically the impact of air quality (AQ). Therefore, this paper aims to review what is known about the impact of AQ on tourism demand, analysing the different methods and approaches used, as well as the results obtained. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review method was used to examine the state of the art in this topic and identify research gaps and new research directions. Only 26 papers were identified that examine the impact of AQ on tourism demand. Findings The majority of the studies were carried out in China and investigate the impact of AQ on tourism from the perspective of tourism demand. Both global (tourism demand) and individual (tourist perceptions) approaches have been used to investigate the impact of AQ on tourism. Originality/value This is the first systematic literature review on the impact of outdoor AQ on tourism demand. Moreover, this paper analyses the methods and approaches that have been used in the literature to examine the impact of outdoor AQ on tourism demand. The paper ends with a discussion on the identified research gaps concerning the influence of AQ on tourism development.
Highlights
In the present era, one of the major motivations for travelling is to avoid the usual environment and seek a site with a pleasant location for releasing psychological stress and pressure (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003)
There seems to be a growing interest on the impact of outdoor air quality (AQ) on tourism demand among researchers, as most of these papers were published in the past decade (88 per cent), mainly in 2017 and 2018 (12 and 42 per cent of the total set of papers were published in these years, respectively) (Figure 2)
There is a higher prevalence of papers in journals or proceedings from the field of “tourism, leisure and hospitality management” (38 per cent), with a notable contribution of “environmental science” (19 per cent), having some papers published in journals or proceedings in the areas of “geography, planning and development” (8 per cent) and “health” or “medicine” (8 per cent) (Table I)
Summary
One of the major motivations for travelling is to avoid the usual environment and seek a site with a pleasant location for releasing psychological stress and pressure (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003). Environmental quality must be taken into account as an important factor in the decision-making process of potential tourists, as it can have a significant effect on the competitiveness of tourism destinations (Zhang et al, 2015; Becken et al, 2017). The environment in some large tourism destination countries such as Egypt, China and India, is deteriorating with the progressive urbanization and industrialization. Ambient AQ should attract more academic attention than thermal comfort and the aesthetic dimension of the physical environment, as AQ is closely related to health risks (Costa et al, 2014). The existing literature places relatively low attention on the effects of AQ on tourism demand and the competitiveness of tourism destinations. The impacts of Celeste Eusebio, Maria Joao Carneiro, Mara Madaleno, Margarita Robaina and
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