School of Economics, Hainan University, Haikou City, Hainan, 570228, China; Institute of Open Economy, Hainan province, Haikou 570228, China; International Business School, Hainan University, Hainan Province, Haikou 570228, China.
School of Economics and Public Policy, Adelaide Business School, The University of Adelaide, Australia; Department of Agricultural Finance and Cooperatives, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, Bangladesh.
J Environ Manage. 2023 Nov 1;345:118551. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118551. Epub 2023 Jul 10.
The rising temperature in the world's atmosphere is an outcome strongly linked to man-made manufactured interventions. Recreational activities in the form of tourism are such interventions that can unleash multidimensional negative externalities if not regulated properly. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) region has become one of the major hubs for recreational activities in the last few decades. However, the region's tourism-led environmental degradation has received scant attention in the literature. As such, this paper unveils how tourist footprint affects the region's environmental sustainability and explores potential solutions to encourage the tourism industry to be more pro-environmental. We have used the novel GMM-PVAR technique to assess how globalization, transportation, green energy, and economic growth have affected the tourism industry and carbon footprint in the BIMSTEC region from 1990 to 2019. We lean on the empirical outcomes to propose regional sustainable tourism development policies. The GMM-PVAR model indicates that renewable energy, economic growth, and the transportation sector's development positively affect the tourism industry's growth in the region. However, globalization and environmental degradation negatively influence tourists' arrival. Contrarily, transportation services, economic growth, and tourism boost the carbon footprint in the region. Although globalization and clean energy reduce carbon footprint, these indicators are insignificant, indicating that this region is still lagging in renewable energy generation and failed to reap the positive spillovers of globalization. Based on these outcomes, we propose that the region redesign its tourism industry to encourage eco-friendly tourism by leaning more on pro-environmental strategies (i.e., powering the tourism industry through the penetration of renewable energies) and tightening environmental regulations.
全球大气温度的上升与人为干预的制造业活动密切相关。如果不对旅游等娱乐活动加以适当监管，它们可能会带来多方面的负面外部性。过去几十年，孟加拉湾多国海上合作倡议（BIMSTEC）地区已成为主要的娱乐活动中心之一。然而，该地区以旅游业为主导的环境恶化在文献中却鲜有提及。因此，本文揭示了旅游足迹如何影响该地区的环境可持续性，并探讨了鼓励旅游业更加环保的潜在解决方案。我们使用新颖的 GMM-PVAR 技术来评估全球化、交通、绿色能源和经济增长如何影响 1990 年至 2019 年 BIMSTEC 地区的旅游业和碳足迹。我们根据实证结果提出了区域可持续旅游发展政策。GMM-PVAR 模型表明，可再生能源、经济增长和交通运输部门的发展对该地区旅游业的增长有积极影响。然而，全球化和环境恶化对游客的到来有负面影响。相反，交通服务、经济增长和旅游业促进了该地区的碳足迹。尽管全球化和清洁能源减少了碳足迹，但这些指标并不显著，这表明该地区在可再生能源发电方面仍落后，未能从全球化中获得积极的溢出效应。基于这些结果，我们建议该地区重新设计其旅游业，通过更多地采用环保策略（即通过可再生能源的渗透为旅游业提供动力）和加强环境法规来鼓励环保旅游。
