Tourism Economics

This paper measures tourism carbon efficiency (TCE) in China by incorporating energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions into an efficiency assessment framework, and to further investigate the determinants of TCE by considering the spatial spillover effects. To do this, a bootstrap slacks-based measure (SBM) model was applied to assess the TCE in 30 provincial-level administrative regions of China from 2008 to 2019. Next, the Moran’s index and spatial Durbin model (SDM) were adopted to explore the spatial distribution and determinants of TCE. The results indicate that regional differences affect the level of China’s TCE, as do spatial spillover effects. In addition, technology innovation, urbanization rate, and government support positively affect TCE. In contrast, economic growth negatively affects TCE. Educational attainment, green infrastructure, and government support have a negative spatial spillover effect on TCE. Transportation infrastructure has a negative total effect on TCE.

This study investigates the impacts of global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) and domestic (Chinese) economic policy uncertainty (CEPU) on the long-run volatility of the tourism stock market in China based on an improved GARCH–MIDAS–X model. Empirical results reveal that both CEPU and GEPU have significant negative effects on the long-run volatility of China’s tourism stock market. It is further identified that the impact of GEPU on tourism companies’ performance is short-lived. The findings suggest that tourism-related practitioners should monitor both CEPU and GEPU when conducting risk assessments related to tourism investment and policymaking.

Although the importance of superior stakeholder relationships in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives is well-established in the literature, research on the antecedents of such investments on salient stakeholders, like employees, and in particular industry contexts is lacking. In this paper, we explore an important antecedent of employee-centered CSR initiatives in the restaurant industry, that is, slack resources. We consider the restaurant industry an ideal context for this study due to the prevalence of limited slack resources, and the salience of employees for customer service, satisfaction, and eventual firm performance. Using a panel dataset of 430 observations of publicly traded firms in the USA, we find that slack resources contribute to socially responsible policies towards employees, yet slack resources do not alleviate any employee-related concerns in the restaurant sector. The findings on the differential effect of slack resources on employee-centered CSR initiatives and concerns provide practical implications and directions for future research.

This study examines the impact of regulations on the supply and performance of Airbnb rentals in Geneva by focusing on the role of substitution effects between fully rented accommodations and individual rooms. A difference-in-differences approach is used in combination with logit and count data models with fixed effects for properties. The data consists of monthly Airbnb listings in the 10 largest Swiss cities for the period 2017–2018, with around 220,000 observations on 16,600 properties (60 per cent of which were being let as entire properties). The estimates show that the performance of Airbnb accommodations decreases significantly after the introduction of regulations in terms of bookings, days reserved, occupancy, and revenues. The performance of single rooms let within private properties, meanwhile, benefited from the new regulation in some cases, suggesting that there may be a substitution effect between the two groups. The magnitude of the impact of regulation is considerable, with monthly revenues of fully let Airbnb accommodations decreasing by an average of 15 per cent.

Limitations in statistical data and differences in accounting methods have hindered the accuracy of tourism carbon emissions accounting. In this research, based on the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and underpinned by the logic of “accounting basis–key coefficient–accounting objective,” a comprehensive decomposition accounting method is built from a consumption stripping perspective. First, it classifies the tourism industry by the “sector–industry–product” structure into seven sectors, 13 industries, and 22 characteristic products/services. Next, it strips the actual tourism consumption from the tourism industry by constructing two key coefficients. Finally, it transforms tourism consumption data into carbon emissions data by introducing tourism ecological efficiency. Taking Guangdong province of China as an example, its tourism carbon emissions are calculated from 2010 to 2020 using the proposed method. The results reveal the distribution structure of tourism carbon emissions and confirm the scientific and accurate nature of this accounting method.

In the context of global climate changes, the green transformation of tourism industry has become a general trend. This study constructed a comprehensive evaluation model (Super SBM-GML) to measure the tourism green productivity (TGP) and used methods including kernel density estimation, spatiotemporal transition, and quantile regression to analyze the evolutionary characteristics and driving factors of province-level TGP in China between 2009 and 2019. The results showed the following: (1) China’s TGP exhibited a two-stage growth trend, maintaining steady growth before 2014 and accelerating thereafter. (2) Regarding the dynamic evolutionary characteristics, the local spatial structure of provincial TGP remains unstable, and the provinces themselves can change their relative positions relatively easily, showing certain characteristics of spatial agglomeration and dynamic interaction. (3) The spatiotemporal network pattern of provincial tourism green productivity was dominated by positive correlations, indicating that the overall collaborative dynamics between provinces were stronger than the competition. However, a certain degree of spatiotemporal competition could be found between some neighboring provinces. (4) The TGP is affected by various driving factors such as tourism economic scale, industrial structure, scientific and technological innovation and environmental regulations, but the driving intensity and direction of each factor differ significantly across the TGP developmental stages.

Environmental sustainability, energy consumption, and tourism are the most discussed topics in the literature. However, limited studies have catered to the relationship among these variables. From this perspective: the current study aims to find the nexus between tourism, energy alternatives, financial development, and pollution emissions by targeting the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. We employ the data of six GCC economies for the years 2000–2019 and adopt fully modified ordinary least square and generalized least square approaches to establish the regression. The findings reveal a positive impact on the number of tourist arrivals (ITAs) while a negative impact on tourism receipts on pollution emissions. Similarly, fossil fuel energy (FFE) shows a positive while renewable energy depicts a negative relationship with CO₂ emissions. This positive impact of tourist arrivals and fossil fuel energy was moderated by financial development. In addition to individual analysis, the developed financial sector can help to reduce the negative externalities of ITA and FFE. The empirical analysis further documents the positive impact of all control variables including foreign investment, economic growth, and gross capital formation on CO₂ emissions. Based on empirical results, it is recommended to bring financial development into the picture to reduce the negative impact of ITA and FFE on environmental quality. This study put forward the literature by adding innovative thoughts regarding the moderating role of financial development in the nexus between tourism, energy alternatives, and CO₂ emissions.

This research aims to quantify the effect of air transport capacity on tourism demand by examining their long-term (cointegrating) relationship, accounting for cross-sectional dependence and endogeneity. Panel time series data from 2008Q1 to 2019Q4 for international tourist arrivals from 16 main origins to six Australian states are investigated. The study finds 1% increase in Available-Seat-Kilometers, seat capacity, or flight frequency can result in 0.4%–0.7% increase in tourist arrivals to Australia, adding to the body of evidence that shows a non-negligible aviation-led generative effect on tourism demand. The study finds ignoring cross-sectional dependence can result in significantly different, and potentially incorrect, coefficient estimates. Although using pre-COVID data, the results are useful in highlighting the likely aviation supply—tourism demand relations under reasonably well-performing market conditions. For greater tourism demand, findings call for more liberal international air services agreements, and direct/indirect air route development subsidies with minimum commitment of several years.

This study employs a sequential mixed methods design to examine the dynamic roles of leadership, customer orientation, and customer collaboration on the innovation capability and performance of Malaysian hotels. An exploratory qualitative assessment based on semi-structured interviews was conducted to provide a comprehensive understanding of the contextual environment and establish a robust conceptual framework. A confirmatory survey among Malaysian hotel managers allowed for the empirical testing of the hypotheses. The results suggest that customer orientation is a key element that directly promotes hotels’ innovation capabilities. The results further show that the influence of customer collaboration on innovation can be enhanced by a transformational leader. Improvements in innovation capabilities have lasting effects on hotel performance, underscoring their strategic importance in the dynamic hospitality sector. These findings offer important implications for top management and decision-making personnel seeking to leverage innovation as a means of improving performance and gaining a competitive edge.

This paper is one of the first which provides an in-depth quantitative analysis of how the development of the tourism industry impacts on the size of the shadow economy of a specific destination. The paper employs time-series techniques and annual data from 1960 to 2018 from Turkey. First, the size of the shadow economy is estimated using the electricity consumption method. The estimates are then used to assess the effect of tourism development on the size of the shadow economy. The findings show that there is a negative relationship between the two. A 1% increase in international tourism arrivals leads to a 0.21% and 0.316% fall in the size of the shadow economy in the short-run and long-run respectively. It implies that as the tourism sector develops, it becomes instrumental in modernising the Turkish economy leading to the movement of resources from the shadow economy to the formal sector. In the long-run the effect of the tourism industry in reducing the size of the shadow economy surpasses that of the financial sector of Turkey.

This paper aims to investigate the dynamic effects of tourism, economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, and globalization on income inequality in OECD countries. Using the novel method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) approach, we aim to provide new perspectives on the Kuznets curve hypothesis regarding the relationship between tourism and income inequality. The results indicate that from the 0.1 to 0.8 quantiles, the linear and cubic terms of the tourism variable positively affect income inequality, while the quadratic term has a negative impact on income inequality. These findings suggest that tourism growth is relinked with income inequality after an inverted U-shape, supporting the N-shape Kuznets curve hypothesis. Based on this evidence, tourism development may not be a sustainable solution for reducing the income gap in the long term. Our results also show a negative association between trade openness and income inequality, while urbanization is linked to unequal income distribution in most cases. Unlike other conditional mean techniques, the MMQR estimation reveals a significant linkage between globalization and income inequality from the 0.4 to 0.9 quantiles. These findings suggest that countries with stronger connections to the global economy may have more equal employment opportunities, thus decreasing income inequality.

This study evaluates whether college students change their beliefs about the social, economic, and environmental effects of tourism activities after receiving educational training. In particular, our goal is to examine if economic instruction affects their views about the impacts of cruise tourism development. We conduct an experiment with students majoring in tourism enrolled in a compulsory course on tourism and transport at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain). We administer a survey before and after the course in three academic years that involve the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. We find that students become more concerned about the negative impacts of cruise tourism, with significant shifts in their agreement with the environmental externalities and price surges associated with cruise tourism. Furthermore, they become more supportive of the setting of a tourism tax per passenger, but agree less with the idea that governments should economically incentivise the arrival of more ships.