environmental impact of transportation to tourism and leisure activities

Carbon Footprint of Tourism

How travel contributes to the climate emergency.

Tourism is responsible for roughly  8%  of the world’s carbon emissions. From plane flights and boat rides to souvenirs and lodging, various activities contribute to tourism’s carbon footprint. The majority of this footprint is emitted by visitors from high-income countries, with U.S. travelers at the top of the list. As the number of people who can afford to travel grows, so will tourism’s environmental footprint.

Keep reading to learn about some of the different ways that travel produces CO2. 

This graph shows the different activities that contribute to tourism’s total carbon footprint.

Data Source:  Nature Climate Change (2018)

Getting from here to there is the most basic component of tourism. Planes, cars, trains, boats, and even hot air balloons allow us to explore destinations all around the world. However, all of our jet-setting and road-tripping comes with a hefty carbon footprint. 

Today, transportation is tourism’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions. On average, planes and cars generate the most CO2 per passenger mile, with tour buses, ferries, and trains coming well behind. In recent years, the number of people traveling internationally skyrocketed as airfare became more affordable. Similarly, between 2005 and 2016, transport-related tourism emissions increased by more than  60% .

These are averages based on  2020 UK conversion factors.  Values will vary based on distance traveled, vehicle model, occupancy rate, flight class, and various other factors.

It would take an acre of forest a year to absorb the same  amount  of CO2 emissions of a one-way flight from London to New York. That’s about the same  amount  of emissions that the average person in Zimbabwe generates over an entire year.

In the same way your house generates emissions from energy use, so do the hotels, homestays, and rental homes that you stay in while on vacation. Many accommodations rely on heating and air conditioning to keep guest rooms at a pleasant temperature in hot or cold climates. These energy-intensive systems create CO2, as do the water heaters used to warm showers, pools, and spas. Electricity used to power lights, TVs, refrigerators, laundry machines, and other equipment is also a big contributor, especially in areas with dated or inefficient systems. 

Emissions from lodging tend to be highest in resorts and hotels that offer modern services, while smaller lodgings such as homestays and guest houses have lower emissions for the most part.

Data Source:  Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency Action Program (2012)

While hotels can lessen their footprint by utilizing clean energy sources, most still depend on dirty fossil fuels for the majority of their energy. According to the 2018  Green Lodging Trends Report , only 21% of hotels currently have on-site renewable energy.

Construction

Resorts, airports, and other tourism facilities can produce massive amounts of carbon even before they open their doors to tourists. Constructing a new building is an energy-intensive process – manufacturing the materials, transporting everything to the site, and constructing the building all generate carbon emissions. And it’s not just buildings that leave behind a footprint – the development of roads and other infrastructure for tourism also contributes to climate change.

Destruction of Carbon Sinks

Along with the construction process, tourism development emits carbon through the clearing of natural areas. Ecosystems, such as forests, act as carbon sinks by absorbing and storing emissions. When this carbon-rich vegetation is removed, CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. 

The mangrove forests that grow along coastlines in many tropical destinations have a tremendous capacity to store carbon. Studies show that they can store up to  4 times  more carbon than most other tropical forests around the world. Sadly, vast areas of mangroves are often cleared to make way for tourist infrastructure such as seaside resorts, beaches, marinas, and entertainment areas.  

The world lost a football field-sized area of tropical forest every five seconds in 2019, causing the same amount of carbon emissions that  400 million  cars would produce over an entire year

Food & Drink

Food production is responsible for roughly  one-quarter  of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Getting food from farm to table means growing, processing, transporting, packaging, refrigerating, and cooking – all of which require energy and contribute to your meal’s carbon footprint. Travel often multiplies this footprint since people tend to indulge more while on vacation. 

To cater to visitor tastes, many hotels and restaurants import the majority of their food products from other countries. Remote island destinations are especially dependent on imports. It is estimated that up to  80%  of the food consumed by the tourism industry in Pacific islands is brought in from overseas. The farther food travels, the more emissions are generated – and to get food to these secluded islands, it has to travel a very long way

Thanks to all-you-can eat hotel buffets and oversized restaurant portions, a substantial amount of the food produced for tourism ends up getting thrown away. When food is wasted, this means that all of those emissions that were generated by its production were unnecessary. Globally, less than half of hotels compost their food waste. When this food decomposes in landfills it creates methane which is  21 times  more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Data Source: Waste & Resources Action Programme    

Wastage of food in tourism is part of a larger, global issue. In fact, if food waste were a country, it would be the world’s  3rd largest  emitter of CO2. 

Though every trip must eventually come to an end, tourists are sure to return home with magnets, hats, art pieces, and other trinkets to remind them of their vacation. But traveler purchases aren’t limited to kitschy souvenirs. From street markets to high-end boutiques, shopping is now a travel experience in itself. 

Whether its jewelry or electronics, the carbon footprint of an item must be calculated with production, manufacturing and shipping in mind. There’s something special about purchasing an item that was made locally in the destination, yet oftentimes souvenirs and other products are mass-produced in factories far away. An item may have travelled between a number of countries and continents before reaching its final destination. For example, the cotton used to make a t-shirt sold in New York may have originated from China, been shipped to Vietnam for manufacturing then flown to New York for sale. Travelers’ buying habits are often different from locals’, thus increasing production emissions.

Looking Ahead

With the impacts of climate change becoming increasingly evident, it is critical that local governments, tourism businesses and suppliers, along with individual travelers all take action to reduce the industry’s reliance on fossil fuels.

New technologies such as solar-powered water heaters, temperature control systems, and energy saving appliances allow the industry to lessen its carbon footprint. Yet these innovations are not enough to outweigh the emissions created by a growing number of travelers.  Projections  indicate that tourism emissions could reach 6.5 billion metric tons by 2025. This represents a 44% increase from 2013, and is equivalent to about 13% of  current  global greenhouse gas emissions. For those emissions that aren’t yet avoidable,  carbon offsetting  should be used to complement sustainability practices and reduce tourism’s carbon footprint.

What You Can Do

Use our online calculator to determine the amount of emissions generated by your travels

Lessen the carbon footprint of your next trip by adopting these sustainable travel practices

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UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

Transport-related co2 emissions from the tourism sector, share this content.

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Climate change | New report

New report: Transport-related CO 2 emissions from the tourism sector – Modelling results

UNWTO and ITF embarked on this research project with the aim of providing evidence of the CO 2 emissions from tourism and the implications of the different modes of transport.

Tourism has to define its own “high-ambition scenario”; a scenario where tourism would transform towards low emission and highly efficient operations.

The report provides insights into the evolution of tourism demand across the different global regions up to the year 2030. It also presents the expected transport-related CO 2  emissions of the tourism sector against the current ambition scenario for the decarbonization of transport and sets the basis to scale up climate action and ambition in the tourism sector. Some findings:

• Intra-regional (within the same region) international travel represents 80% of all international arrivals both in 2016 and 2030 and is predominantly done by air, followed by car. Inter-regional (across regions) travel therefore represents 20% of all travel and is almost exclusively (95%) done by air.
• Transport-related emissions from international tourism are expected to grow 45% from 2016 to 2030 (from 458 Mt CO 2 to 665 Mt CO 2 ). Transport-related emissions from domestic tourism are expected to grow by 21% from 2016 to 2030 (from 913 Mt CO 2 to 1103 Mt CO 2 ).
• Transport-related CO 2  emissions of the tourism sector are 22% of the whole emissions from transport and therefore enhanced cooperation with the transport sector is essential to support the implementation of a high-ambition scenario.

At the same time, tourism has to determine its own high-ambition scenario, beyond transport; a scenario where tourism would transform towards low emission and highly efficient operations.

Related Links

• Download the report
• Watch the Climate Action video

• View Record

TRID the TRIS and ITRD database

Environmental Impacts of Transport, Related to Tourism and Leisure Activities

This chapter describes how mass tourism is considered to be a modern phenomenon that stems primarily from the introduction of personal vehicles and motorized mass transport from the late 19th Century onwards. Mass tourism accelerated after 1945 because of the development of passenger airlines. Initially, mass tourism was a short-range phenomenon largely within nation states, but it is now global with tourists from developed countries visiting all parts of the world. The greatest ecological threats that mass tourism poses undoubtedly lies in the infrastructure and transport arrangements that are required to support it, particularly in situations where numbers of tourists are subject to little control. Physical development of resorts, consumption of fuel by buildings, aircraft, trains, buses, taxis and cars, overuse of water resources, pollution by vehicle emissions, sewage and litter all contribute to substantial, often irreversible environmental degradation, as well as to dramatic social consequences. The first part of the chapter focuses on the transport-related aspects of these large-scale problems. The second part of the chapter is aimed at assessing the ecological impact of individual leisure transport. This has developed from a simple matter of walking or horse riding that sufficed for centuries, through bicycle touring and leisure boating the burgeoned at the end of the 19th Century, to the use of high-powered four-wheel drives, snowmobiles and jet skis by 21st Century leisure consumers.

• Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9781402045035
• Davenport, John
• Switalski, T Adam
• Publication Date: 2006
• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 333-360
• Monograph Title: The Ecology of Transportation: Managing Mobility for the Environment

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air quality management ; Airlines ; Developed countries ; Environmental impacts ; Fuel consumption ; Highway facilities for motorized users ; Infrastructure ; Leisure time ; Pollution control ; Tourism ; Tourists ; Water resources development
• Uncontrolled Terms: Motorized personal transportation devices
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Design; Energy; Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I15: Environment; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01041642
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9781402045035
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 30 2007 1:32PM

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Article contents

The role of tourism in sustainable development.

• Robert B. Richardson Robert B. Richardson Community Sustainability, Michigan State University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.387
• Published online: 25 March 2021

Sustainable development is the foundational principle for enhancing human and economic development while maintaining the functional integrity of ecological and social systems that support regional economies. Tourism has played a critical role in sustainable development in many countries and regions around the world. In developing countries, tourism development has been used as an important strategy for increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, creating jobs, and improving food security. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of biological diversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage sites that attract international tourists whose local purchases generate income and support employment and economic development. Tourism has been associated with the principles of sustainable development because of its potential to support environmental protection and livelihoods. However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is multifaceted, as some types of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, many of which are borne by host communities.

The concept of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which involves the participation of large numbers of people, often in structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has been associated with economic leakage and dependence, along with negative environmental and social impacts. Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to these economic, environmental, and social impacts. Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms. Tourism has played an important role in sustainable development in some countries through the development of alternative tourism models, including ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others that aim to enhance livelihoods, increase local economic growth, and provide for environmental protection. Although these models have been given significant attention among researchers, the extent of their implementation in tourism planning initiatives has been limited, superficial, or incomplete in many contexts.

The sustainability of tourism as a global system is disputed among scholars. Tourism is dependent on travel, and nearly all forms of transportation require the use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels for energy. The burning of fossil fuels for transportation generates emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change, which is fundamentally unsustainable. Tourism is also vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include the impacts of natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and civil unrest. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to global shocks include the impacts of climate change, economic crisis, global public health pandemics, oil price shocks, and acts of terrorism. It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, debatable, and potentially contradictory.

• conservation
• economic development
• environmental impacts
• sustainable development
• sustainable tourism
• tourism development

Introduction

Sustainable development is the guiding principle for advancing human and economic development while maintaining the integrity of ecosystems and social systems on which the economy depends. It is also the foundation of the leading global framework for international cooperation—the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015 ). The concept of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987 , p. 29), which defined it as “paths of human progress that meet the needs and aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Concerns about the environmental implications of economic development in lower income countries had been central to debates about development studies since the 1970s (Adams, 2009 ). The principles of sustainable development have come to dominate the development discourse, and the concept has become the primary development paradigm since the 1990s.

Tourism has played an increasingly important role in sustainable development since the 1990s, both globally and in particular countries and regions. For decades, tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, non-extractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ). Many developing countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development is increasingly viewed as an important tool in increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, and improving food security. Tourism enables communities that are poor in material wealth, but rich in history and cultural heritage, to leverage their unique assets for economic development (Honey & Gilpin, 2009 ). More importantly, tourism offers an alternative to large-scale development projects, such as construction of dams, and to extractive industries such as mining and forestry, all of which contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and the cultural values of Indigenous Peoples.

Environmental quality in destination areas is inextricably linked with tourism, as visiting natural areas and sightseeing are often the primary purpose of many leisure travels. Some forms of tourism, such as ecotourism, can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecosystem functions in destination areas (Fennell, 2020 ; Gössling, 1999 ). Butler ( 1991 ) suggests that there is a kind of mutual dependence between tourism and the environment that should generate mutual benefits. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of species diversity, natural resources, and protected areas. Such ideas imply that tourism may be well aligned with the tenets of sustainable development.

However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is complex, as some forms of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, land use, and food consumption (Butler, 1991 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ; Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Assessments of the sustainability of tourism have highlighted several themes, including (a) parks, biodiversity, and conservation; (b) pollution and climate change; (c) prosperity, economic growth, and poverty alleviation; (d) peace, security, and safety; and (e) population stabilization and reduction (Buckley, 2012 ). From a global perspective, tourism contributes to (a) changes in land cover and land use; (b) energy use, (c) biotic exchange and extinction of wild species; (d) exchange and dispersion of diseases; and (e) changes in the perception and understanding of the environment (Gössling, 2002 ).

Research on tourism and the environment spans a wide range of social and natural science disciplines, and key contributions have been disseminated across many interdisciplinary fields, including biodiversity conservation, climate science, economics, and environmental science, among others (Buckley, 2011 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Given the global significance of the tourism sector and its environmental impacts, the role of tourism in sustainable development is an important topic of research in environmental science generally and in environmental economics and management specifically. Reviews of tourism research have highlighted future research priorities for sustainable development, including the role of tourism in the designation and expansion of protected areas; improvement in environmental accounting techniques that quantify environmental impacts; and the effects of individual perceptions of responsibility in addressing climate change (Buckley, 2012 ).

Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries, and it has linkages with many of the prime sectors of the global economy (Fennell, 2020 ). As a global economic sector, tourism represents one of the largest generators of wealth, and it is an important agent of economic growth and development (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). Tourism is a critical industry in many local and national economies, and it represents a large and growing share of world trade (Hunter, 1995 ). Global tourism has had an average annual increase of 6.6% over the past half century, with international tourist arrivals rising sharply from 25.2 million in 1950 to more than 950 million in 2010 . In 2019 , the number of international tourists reached 1.5 billion, up 4% from 2018 (Fennell, 2020 ; United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO], 2020 ). European countries are host to more than half of international tourists, but since 1990 , growth in international arrivals has risen faster than the global average, in both the Middle East and the Asia and Pacific region (UNWTO, 2020 ).

The growth in global tourism has been accompanied by an expansion of travel markets and a diversification of tourism destinations. In 1950 , the top five travel destinations were all countries in Europe and the Americas, and these destinations held 71% of the global travel market (Fennell, 2020 ). By 2002 , these countries represented only 35%, which underscores the emergence of newly accessible travel destinations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim, including numerous developing countries. Over the past 70 years, global tourism has grown significantly as an economic sector, and it has contributed to the economic development of dozens of nations.

Given the growth of international tourism and its emergence as one of the world’s largest export sectors, the question of its impact on economic growth for the host countries has been a topic of great interest in the tourism literature. Two hypotheses have emerged regarding the role of tourism in the economic growth process (Apergis & Payne, 2012 ). First, tourism-led growth hypothesis relies on the assumption that tourism is an engine of growth that generates spillovers and positive externalities through economic linkages that will impact the overall economy. Second, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis emphasizes policies oriented toward well-defined and enforceable property rights, stable political institutions, and adequate investment in both physical and human capital to facilitate the development of the tourism sector. Studies have concluded with support for both the tourism-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Durbarry, 2004 ; Katircioglu, 2010 ) and the economic-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Katircioglu, 2009 ; Oh, 2005 ), whereas other studies have found support for a bidirectional causality for tourism and economic growth (e.g., Apergis & Payne, 2012 ; Lee & Chang, 2008 ).

The growth of tourism has been marked by an increase in the competition for tourist expenditures, making it difficult for destinations to maintain their share of the international tourism market (Butler, 1991 ). Tourism development is cyclical and subject to short-term cycles and overconsumption of resources. Butler ( 1980 ) developed a tourist-area cycle of evolution that depicts the number of tourists rising sharply over time through periods of exploration, involvement, and development, before eventual consolidation and stagnation. When tourism growth exceeds the carrying capacity of the area, resource degradation can lead to the decline of tourism unless specific steps are taken to promote rejuvenation (Butler, 1980 , 1991 ).

The potential of tourism development as a tool to contribute to environmental conservation, economic growth, and poverty reduction is derived from several unique characteristics of the tourism system (UNWTO, 2002 ). First, tourism represents an opportunity for economic diversification, particularly in marginal areas with few other export options. Tourists are attracted to remote areas with high values of cultural, wildlife, and landscape assets. The cultural and natural heritage of developing countries is frequently based on such assets, and tourism represents an opportunity for income generation through the preservation of heritage values. Tourism is the only export sector where the consumer travels to the exporting country, which provides opportunities for lower-income households to become exporters through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists. Tourism is also labor intensive; it provides small-scale employment opportunities, which also helps to promote gender equity. Finally, there are numerous indirect benefits of tourism for people living in poverty, including increased market access for remote areas through the development of roads, infrastructure, and communication networks. Nevertheless, travel is highly income elastic and carbon intensive, which has significant implications for the sustainability of the tourism sector (Lenzen et al., 2018 ).

Concerns about environmental issues appeared in tourism research just as global awareness of the environmental impacts of human activities was expanding. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972 , the same year as the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972 ), which highlighted the concerns about the implications of exponential economic and population growth in a world of finite resources. This was the same year that the famous Blue Marble photograph of Earth was taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft (Höhler, 2015 , p. 10), and the image captured the planet cloaked in the darkness of space and became a symbol of Earth’s fragility and vulnerability. As noted by Buckley ( 2012 ), tourism researchers turned their attention to social and environmental issues around the same time (Cohen, 1978 ; Farrell & McLellan, 1987 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Young, 1973 ).

The notion of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future , the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987 ). The report characterized sustainable development in terms of meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987 , p. 43). Four basic principles are fundamental to the concept of sustainability: (a) the idea of holistic planning and strategy making; (b) the importance of preserving essential ecological processes; (c) the need to protect both human heritage and biodiversity; and (d) the need to develop in such a way that productivity can be sustained over the long term for future generations (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ). In addition to achieving balance between economic growth and the conservation of natural resources, there should be a balance of fairness and opportunity between the nations of the world.

Although the modern concept of sustainable development emerged with the publication of Our Common Future , sustainable development has its roots in ideas about sustainable forest management that were developed in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries (Blewitt, 2015 ; Grober, 2007 ). Sustainable forest management is concerned with the stewardship and use of forests in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, and regeneration capacity as well as their potential to fulfill society’s demands for forest products and benefits. Building on these ideas, Daly ( 1990 ) offered two operational principles of sustainable development. First, sustainable development implies that harvest rates should be no greater than rates of regeneration; this concept is known as maximum sustainable yield. Second, waste emission rates should not exceed the natural assimilative capacities of the ecosystems into which the wastes are emitted. Regenerative and assimilative capacities are characterized as natural capital, and a failure to maintain these capacities is not sustainable.

Shortly after the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in academic and policy discourse, tourism researchers began referring to the notion of sustainable tourism (May, 1991 ; Nash & Butler, 1990 ), which soon became the dominant paradigm of tourism development. The concept of sustainable tourism, as with the role of tourism in sustainable development, has been interpreted in different ways, and there is a lack of consensus concerning its meaning, objectives, and indicators (Sharpley, 2000 ). Growing interest in the subject inspired the creation of a new academic journal, Journal of Sustainable Tourism , which was launched in 1993 and has become a leading tourism journal. It is described as “an international journal that publishes research on tourism and sustainable development, including economic, social, cultural and political aspects.”

The notion of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which is characterized by the participation of large numbers of people, often provided as structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has risen sharply in the last half century. International arrivals alone have increased by an average annual rate of more than 25% since 1950 , and many of those trips involved mass tourism activities (Fennell, 2020 ; UNWTO, 2020 ). Some examples of mass tourism include beach resorts, cruise ship tourism, gaming casinos, golf resorts, group tours, ski resorts, theme parks, and wildlife safari tourism, among others. Little data exist regarding the volume of domestic mass tourism, but nevertheless mass tourism activities dominate the global tourism sector. Mass tourism has been shown to generate benefits to host countries, such as income and employment generation, although it has also been associated with economic leakage (where revenue generated by tourism is lost to other countries’ economies) and economic dependency (where developing countries are dependent on wealthier countries for tourists, imports, and foreign investment) (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Khan, 1997 ; Peeters, 2012 ). Mass tourism has been associated with numerous negative environmental impacts and social impacts (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Ghimire, 2013 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ). Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to many of these economic, environmental, and social impacts.

Much of the early research on sustainable tourism focused on defining the concept, which has been the subject of vigorous debate (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Inskeep, 1991 ; Liu, 2003 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). Early definitions of sustainable tourism development seemed to fall in one of two categories (Sharpley, 2000 ). First, the “tourism-centric” paradigm of sustainable tourism development focuses on sustaining tourism as an economic activity (Hunter, 1995 ). Second, alternative paradigms have situated sustainable tourism in the context of wider sustainable development policies (Butler, 1991 ). One of the most comprehensive definitions of sustainable tourism echoes some of the language of the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainable development (WCED, 1987 ), emphasizing opportunities for the future while also integrating social and environmental concerns:

Sustainable tourism can be thought of as meeting the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. Sustainable tourism development is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that we can fulfill economic, social and aesthetic needs while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems. (Inskeep, 1991 , p. 461)

Hunter argued that over the short and long terms, sustainable tourism development should

“meet the needs and wants of the local host community in terms of improved living standards and quality of life;

satisfy the demands of tourists and the tourism industry, and continue to attract them in order to meet the first aim; and

safeguard the environmental resource base for tourism, encompassing natural, built and cultural components, in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.” (Hunter, 1995 , p. 156)

Numerous other definitions have been documented, and the term itself has been subject to widespread critique (Buckley, 2012 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, there have been numerous calls to move beyond debate about a definition and to consider how it may best be implemented in practice (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Liu, 2003 ). Cater ( 1993 ) identified three key criteria for sustainable tourism: (a) meeting the needs of the host population in terms of improved living standards both in the short and long terms; (b) satisfying the demands of a growing number of tourists; and (c) safeguarding the natural environment in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.

Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ). Similar criticisms have been leveled at the concept of sustainable development, which has been described as an oxymoron with a wide range of meanings (Adams, 2009 ; Daly, 1990 ) and “defined in such a way as to be either morally repugnant or logically redundant” (Beckerman, 1994 , p. 192). Sharpley ( 2000 ) suggests that in the tourism literature, there has been “a consistent and fundamental failure to build a theoretical link between sustainable tourism and its parental paradigm,” sustainable development (p. 2). Hunter ( 1995 ) suggests that practical measures designed to operationalize sustainable tourism fail to address many of the critical issues that are central to the concept of sustainable development generally and may even actually counteract the fundamental requirements of sustainable development. He suggests that mainstream sustainable tourism development is concerned with protecting the immediate resource base that will sustain tourism development while ignoring concerns for the status of the wider tourism resource base, such as potential problems associated with air pollution, congestion, introduction of invasive species, and declining oil reserves. The dominant paradigm of sustainable tourism development has been described as introverted, tourism-centric, and in competition with other sectors for scarce resources (McKercher, 1993a ). Hunter ( 1995 , p. 156) proposes an alternative, “extraparochial” paradigm where sustainable tourism development is reconceptualized in terms of its contribution to overall sustainable development. Such a paradigm would reconsider the scope, scale, and sectoral context of tourism-related resource utilization issues.

“Sustainability,” “sustainable tourism,” and “sustainable development” are all well-established terms that have often been used loosely and interchangeably in the tourism literature (Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, the subject of sustainable tourism has been given considerable attention and has been the focus of numerous academic compilations and textbooks (Coccossis & Nijkamp, 1995 ; Hall & Lew, 1998 ; Stabler, 1997 ; Swarbrooke, 1999 ), and it calls for new approaches to sustainable tourism development (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). The notion of sustainable tourism has been reconceptualized in the literature by several authors who provided alternative frameworks for tourism development (Buckley, 2012 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ; Sharpley, 2000 ).

Early research in sustainable tourism focused on the local environmental impacts of tourism, including energy use, water use, food consumption, and change in land use (Buckley, 2012 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ). Subsequent research has emphasized the global environmental impacts of tourism, such as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity losses (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Additional research has emphasized the impacts of environmental change on tourism itself, including the impacts of climate change on tourist behavior (Gössling et al., 2012 ; Richardson & Loomis, 2004 ; Scott et al., 2012 ; Viner, 2006 ). Countries that are dependent on tourism for economic growth may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Richardson & Witkoswki, 2010 ).

The early focus on environmental issues in sustainable tourism has been broadened to include economic, social, and cultural issues as well as questions of power and equity in society (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Sharpley, 2014 ), and some of these frameworks have integrated notions of social equity, prosperity, and cultural heritage values. Sustainable tourism is dependent on critical long-term considerations of the impacts; notions of equity; an appreciation of the importance of linkages (i.e., economic, social, and environmental); and the facilitation of cooperation and collaboration between different stakeholders (Elliott & Neirotti, 2008 ).

McKercher ( 1993b ) notes that tourism resources are typically part of the public domain or are intrinsically linked to the social fabric of the host community. As a result, many commonplace tourist activities such as sightseeing may be perceived as invasive by members of the host community. Many social impacts of tourism can be linked to the overuse of the resource base, increases in traffic congestion, rising land prices, urban sprawl, and changes in the social structure of host communities. Given the importance of tourist–resident interaction, sustainable tourism development depends in part on the support of the host community (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ).

Tourism planning involves the dual objectives of optimizing the well-being of local residents in host communities and minimizing the costs of tourism development (Sharpley, 2014 ). Tourism researchers have paid significant attention to examining the social impacts of tourism in general and to understanding host communities’ perceptions of tourism in particular. Studies of the social impacts of tourism development have examined the perceptions of local residents and the effects of tourism on social cohesion, traditional lifestyles, and the erosion of cultural heritage, particularly among Indigenous Peoples (Butler & Hinch, 2007 ; Deery et al., 2012 ; Mathieson & Wall, 1982 ; Sharpley, 2014 ; Whitford & Ruhanen, 2016 ).

Alternative Tourism and Sustainable Development

A wide body of published research is related to the role of tourism in sustainable development, and much of the literature involves case studies of particular types of tourism. Many such studies contrast types of alternative tourism with those of mass tourism, which has received sustained criticism for decades and is widely considered to be unsustainable (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ). Still, some tourism researchers have taken issue with the conclusion that mass tourism is inherently unsustainable (Sharpley, 2000 ; Weaver, 2007 ), and some have argued for developing pathways to “sustainable mass tourism” as “the desired and impending outcome for most destinations” (Weaver, 2012 , p. 1030). In integrating an ethical component to mass tourism development, Weaver ( 2014 , p. 131) suggests that the desirable outcome is “enlightened mass tourism.” Such suggestions have been contested in the literature and criticized for dubious assumptions about emergent norms of sustainability and support for growth, which are widely seen as contradictory (Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ).

Models of responsible or alternative tourism development include ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others. Most models of alternative tourism development emphasize themes that aim to counteract the perceived negative impacts of conventional or mass tourism. As such, the objectives of these models of tourism development tend to focus on minimizing environmental impacts, supporting biodiversity conservation, empowering local communities, alleviating poverty, and engendering pleasant relationships between tourists and residents.

Approaches to alternative tourism development tend to overlap with themes of responsible tourism, and the two terms are frequently used interchangeably. Responsible tourism has been characterized in terms of numerous elements, including

ensuring that communities are involved in and benefit from tourism;

respecting local, natural, and cultural environments;

involving the local community in planning and decision-making;

using local resources sustainably;

behaving in ways that are sensitive to the host culture;

maintaining and encouraging natural, economic, and cultural diversity; and

assessing environmental, social, and economic impacts as a prerequisite to tourism development (Spenceley, 2012 ).

Hetzer ( 1965 ) identified four fundamental principles or perquisites for a more responsible form of tourism: (a) minimum environmental impact; (b) minimum impact on and maximum respect for host cultures; (c) maximum economic benefits to the host country; and (d) maximum leisure satisfaction to participating tourists.

The history of ecotourism is closely connected with the emergence of sustainable development, as it was born out of a concern for the conservation of biodiversity. Ecotourism is a form of tourism that aims to minimize local environmental impacts while bringing benefits to protected areas and the people living around those lands (Honey, 2008 ). Ecotourism represents a small segment of nature-based tourism, which is understood as tourism based on the natural attractions of an area, such as scenic areas and wildlife (Gössling, 1999 ). The ecotourism movement gained momentum in the 1990s, primarily in developing countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly all countries are now engaged in some form of ecotourism. In some communities, ecotourism is the primary economic activity and source of income and economic development.

The term “ecotourism” was coined by Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin and defined by him as “tourism that consists in travelling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas with the specific object of studying, admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 13). In discussing ecotourism resources, he also made reference to “any existing cultural manifestations (both past and present) found in these areas” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 14). The basic precepts of ecotourism had been discussed long before the actual use of the term. Twenty years earlier, Hetzer ( 1965 ) referred to a form of tourism “based principally upon natural and archaeological resources such as caves, fossil sites (and) archaeological sites.” Thus, both natural resources and cultural resources were integrated into ecotourism frameworks from the earliest manifestations.

Costa Rica is well known for having successfully integrated ecotourism in its overall strategy for sustainable development, and numerous case studies of ecotourism in Costa Rica appear in the literature (Chase et al., 1998 ; Fennell & Eagles, 1990 ; Gray & Campbell, 2007 ; Hearne & Salinas, 2002 ). Ecotourism in Costa Rica has been seen as having supported the economic development of the country while promoting biodiversity conservation in its extensive network of protected areas. Chase et al. ( 1998 ) estimated the demand for ecotourism in a study of differential pricing of entrance fees at national parks in Costa Rica. The authors estimated elasticities associated with the own-price, cross-price, and income variables and found that the elasticities of demand were significantly different between three different national park sites. The results reveal the heterogeneity characterizing tourist behavior and park attractions and amenities. Hearne and Salinas ( 2002 ) used choice experiments to examine the preferences of domestic and foreign tourists in Costa Rica in an ecotourism site. Both sets of tourists demonstrated a preference for improved infrastructure, more information, and lower entrance fees. Foreign tourists demonstrated relatively stronger preferences for the inclusion of restrictions in the access to some trails.

Ecotourism has also been studied extensively in Kenya (Southgate, 2006 ), Malaysia (Lian Chan & Baum, 2007 ), Nepal (Baral et al., 2008 ), Peru (Stronza, 2007 ), and Taiwan (Lai & Nepal, 2006 ), among many other countries. Numerous case studies have demonstrated the potential for ecotourism to contribute to sustainable development by providing support for biodiversity conservation, local livelihoods, and regional development.

Community-Based Tourism

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a model of tourism development that emphasizes the development of local communities and allows for local residents to have substantial control over its development and management, and a major proportion of the benefits remain within the community. CBT emerged during the 1970s as a response to the negative impacts of the international mass tourism development model (Cater, 1993 ; Hall & Lew, 2009 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ).

Community-based tourism has been examined for its potential to contribute to poverty reduction. In a study of the viability of the CBT model to support socioeconomic development and poverty alleviation in Nicaragua, tourism was perceived by participants in the study to have an impact on employment creation in their communities (Zapata et al., 2011 ). Tourism was seen to have had positive impacts on strengthening local knowledge and skills, particularly on the integration of women to new roles in the labor market. One of the main perceived gains regarding the environment was the process of raising awareness regarding the conservation of natural resources. The small scale of CBT operations and low capacity to accommodate visitors was seen as a limitation of the model.

Spenceley ( 2012 ) compiled case studies of community-based tourism in countries in southern Africa, including Botswana, Madagascar, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In this volume, authors characterize community-based and nature-based tourism development projects in the region and demonstrate how community participation in planning and decision-making has generated benefits for local residents and supported conservation initiatives. They contend that responsible tourism practices are of particular importance in the region because of the rich biological diversity, abundant charismatic wildlife, and the critical need for local economic development and livelihood strategies.

In Kenya, CBT enterprises were not perceived to have made a significant impact on poverty reduction at an individual household level, in part because the model relied heavily on donor funding, reinforcing dependency and poverty (Manyara & Jones, 2007 ). The study identified several critical success factors for CBT enterprises, namely, awareness and sensitization, community empowerment, effective leadership, and community capacity building, which can inform appropriate tourism policy formulation in Kenya. The impacts of CBT on economic development and poverty reduction would be greatly enhanced if tourism initiatives were able to emphasize independence, address local community priorities, enhance community empowerment and transparency, discourage elitism, promote effective community leadership, and develop community capacity to operate their own enterprises more efficiently.

Pro-Poor Tourism

Pro-poor tourism is a model of tourism development that brings net benefits to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ; Harrison, 2008 ). Although its theoretical foundations and development objectives overlap to some degree with those of community-based tourism and other models of AT, the key distinctive feature of pro-poor tourism is that it places poor people and poverty at the top of the agenda. By focusing on a very simple and incontrovertibly moral idea, namely, the net benefits of tourism to impoverished people, the concept has broad appeal to donors and international aid agencies. Harnessing the economic benefits of tourism for pro-poor growth means capitalizing on the advantages while reducing negative impacts to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ). Pro-poor approaches to tourism development include increasing access of impoverished people to economic benefits; addressing negative social and environmental impacts associated with tourism; and focusing on policies, processes, and partnerships that seek to remove barriers to participation by people living in poverty. At the local level, pro-poor tourism can play a very significant role in livelihood security and poverty reduction (Ashley & Roe, 2002 ).

Rogerson ( 2011 ) argues that the growth of pro-poor tourism initiatives in South Africa suggests that the country has become a laboratory for the testing and evolution of new approaches toward sustainable development planning that potentially will have relevance for other countries in the developing world. A study of pro-poor tourism development initiatives in Laos identified a number of favorable conditions for pro-poor tourism development, including the fact that local people are open to tourism and motivated to participate (Suntikul et al., 2009 ). The authors also noted a lack of development in the linkages that could optimize the fulfilment of the pro-poor agenda, such as training or facilitation of local people’s participation in pro-poor tourism development at the grassroots level.

Critics of the model have argued that pro-poor tourism is based on an acceptance of the status quo of existing capitalism, that it is morally indiscriminate and theoretically imprecise, and that its practitioners are academically and commercially marginal (Harrison, 2008 ). As Chok et al. ( 2007 ) indicate, the focus “on poor people in the South reflects a strong anthropocentric view . . . and . . . environmental benefits are secondary to poor peoples’” benefits (p. 153).

Harrison ( 2008 ) argues that pro-poor tourism is not a distinctive approach to tourism as a development tool and that it may be easier to discuss what pro-poor tourism is not than what it is. He concludes that it is neither anticapitalist nor inconsistent with mainstream tourism on which it relies; it is neither a theory nor a model and is not a niche form of tourism. Further, he argues that it has no distinctive method and is not only about people living in poverty.

Slow Tourism

The concept of slow tourism has emerged as a model of sustainable tourism development, and as such, it lacks an exact definition. The concept of slow tourism traces its origin back to some institutionalized social movements such as “slow food” and “slow cities” that began in Italy in the 1990s and spread rapidly around the world (Fullagar et al., 2012 ; Oh et al., 2016 , p. 205). Advocates of slow tourism tend to emphasize slowness in terms of speed, mobility, and modes of transportation that generate less environmental pollution. They propose niche marketing for alternative forms of tourism that focus on quality upgrading rather than merely increasing the quantity of visitors via the established mass-tourism infrastructure (Conway & Timms, 2010 ).

In the context of the Caribbean region, slow tourism has been promoted as more culturally sensitive and authentic, as compared to the dominant mass tourism development model that is based on all-inclusive beach resorts dependent on foreign investment (Conway & Timms, 2010 ). Recognizing its value as an alternative marketing strategy, Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) make the case for rebranding alternative tourism in the Caribbean as a means of revitalizing the sector for the changing demands of tourists in the 21st century . They suggest that slow tourism is the antithesis of mass tourism, which “relies on increasing the quantity of tourists who move through the system with little regard to either the quality of the tourists’ experience or the benefits that accrue to the localities the tourist visits” (Conway & Timms, 2010 , p. 332). The authors draw on cases from Barbados, the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago to characterize models of slow tourism development in remote fishing villages and communities near nature preserves and sea turtle nesting sites.

Although there is a growing interest in the concept of slow tourism in the literature, there seems to be little agreement about the exact nature of slow tourism and whether it is a niche form of special interest tourism or whether it represents a more fundamental potential shift across the industry. Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) focus on the destination, advocating for slow tourism in terms of a promotional identity for an industry in need of rebranding. Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 77) discusses the implementation of slow tourism in terms of “encouraging visitors to make slower choices when planning and enjoying their holidays.” It is not clear whether slow tourism is a marketing strategy, a mindset, or a social movement, but the literature on slow tourism nearly always equates the term with sustainable tourism (Caffyn, 2012 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Oh et al., 2016 ). Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 80) suggests that slow tourism could offer a “win–win,” which she describes as “a more sustainable form of tourism; keeping more of the economic benefits within the local community and destination; and delivering a more meaningful and satisfying experience.” Research on slow tourism is nascent, and thus the contribution of slow tourism to sustainable development is not well understood.

Impacts of Tourism Development

The role of tourism in sustainable development can be examined through an understanding of the economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism. Tourism is a global phenomenon that involves travel, recreation, the consumption of food, overnight accommodations, entertainment, sightseeing, and other activities that simultaneously intersect the lives of local residents, businesses, and communities. The impacts of tourism involve benefits and costs to all groups, and some of these impacts cannot easily be measured. Nevertheless, they have been studied extensively in the literature, which provides some context for how these benefits and costs are distributed.

Economic Impacts of Tourism

The travel and tourism sector is one of the largest components of the global economy, and global tourism has increased exponentially since the end of the Second World War (UNWTO, 2020 ). The direct, indirect, and induced economic impact of global travel accounted for 8.9 trillion U.S. dollars in contribution to the global gross domestic product (GDP), or 10.3% of global GDP. The global travel and tourism sector supports approximately 330 million jobs, or 1 in 10 jobs around the world. From an economic perspective, tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development. In many developing countries, tourism has the potential to play a unique role in income generation and distribution relative to many other industries, in part because of its high multiplier effect and consumption of local goods and services. However, research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been fully realized (Liu, 2003 ).

Numerous studies have examined the impact of tourism expenditure on GDP, income, employment, and public sector revenue. Narayan ( 2004 ) used a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic impact of tourism growth on the economy of Fiji. Tourism is Fiji’s largest industry, with average annual growth of 10–12%; and as a middle-income country, tourism is critical to Fiji’s economic development. The findings indicate that an increase in tourism expenditures was associated with an increase in GDP, an improvement in the country’s balance of payments, and an increase in real consumption and national welfare. Evidence suggests that the benefits of tourism expansion outweigh any export effects caused by an appreciation of the exchange rate and an increase in domestic prices and wages.

Seetanah ( 2011 ) examined the potential contribution of tourism to economic growth and development using panel data of 19 island economies around the world from 1990 to 2007 and revealed that tourism development is an important factor in explaining economic performance in the selected island economies. The results have policy implications for improving economic growth by harnessing the contribution of the tourism sector. Pratt ( 2015 ) modeled the economic impact of tourism for seven small island developing states in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. In most states, the transportation sector was found to have above-average linkages to other sectors of the economy. The results revealed some advantages of economies of scale for maximizing the economic contribution of tourism.

Apergis and Payne ( 2012 ) examined the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth for a panel of nine Caribbean countries. The panel of Caribbean countries includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The authors use a panel error correction model to reveal bidirectional causality between tourism and economic growth in both the short run and the long run. The presence of bidirectional causality reiterates the importance of the tourism sector in the generation of foreign exchange income and in financing the production of goods and services within these countries. Likewise, stable political institutions and adequate government policies to ensure the appropriate investment in physical and human capital will enhance economic growth. In turn, stable economic growth will provide the resources needed to develop the tourism infrastructure for the success of the countries’ tourism sector. Thus, policy makers should be cognizant of the interdependent relationship between tourism and economic growth in the design and implementation of economic policy. The mixed nature of these results suggest that the relationship between tourism and economic growth depends largely on the social and economic context as well as the role of tourism in the economy.

The economic benefits and costs of tourism are frequently distributed unevenly. An analysis of the impact of wildlife conservation policies in Zambia on household welfare found that households located near national parks earn higher levels of income from wage employment and self-employment than other rural households in the country, but they were also more likely to suffer crop losses related to wildlife conflicts (Richardson et al., 2012 ). The findings suggest that tourism development and wildlife conservation can contribute to pro-poor development, but they may be sustainable only if human–wildlife conflicts are minimized or compensated.

Environmental Impacts of Tourism

The environmental impacts of tourism are significant, ranging from local effects to contributions to global environmental change (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Tourism is both dependent on water resources and a factor in global and local freshwater use. Tourists consume water for drinking, when showering and using the toilet, when participating in activities such as winter ski tourism (i.e., snowmaking), and when using swimming pools and spas. Fresh water is also needed to maintain hotel gardens and golf courses, and water use is embedded in tourism infrastructure development (e.g., accommodations, laundry, dining) and in food and fuel production. Direct water consumption in tourism is estimated to be approximately 350 liters (L) per guest night for accommodation; when indirect water use from food, energy, and transport are considered, total water use in tourism is estimated to be approximately 6,575 L per guest night, or 27,800 L per person per trip (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). In addition, tourism contributes to the pollution of oceans as well as lakes, rivers, and other freshwater systems (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling et al., 2011 ).

The clearing and conversion of land is central for tourism development, and in many cases, the land used for tourism includes roads, airports, railways, accommodations, trails, pedestrian walks, shopping areas, parking areas, campgrounds, vacation homes, golf courses, marinas, ski resorts, and indirect land use for food production, disposal of solid wastes, and the treatment of wastewater (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Global land use for accommodation is estimated to be approximately 42 m 2 per bed. Total global land use for tourism is estimated to be nearly 62,000 km 2 , or 11.7 m 2 per tourist; more than half of this estimate is represented by land use for traffic infrastructure.

Tourism and hospitality have direct and indirect links to nearly all aspects of food production, preparation, and consumption because of the quantities of food consumed in tourism contexts (Gössling et al., 2011 ). Food production has significant implications for sustainable development, given the growing global demand for food. The implications include land conversion, losses to biodiversity, changes in nutrient cycling, and contributions to greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change (Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Global food use for tourism is estimated to be approximately 39.4 megatons 1 (Mt), about 38% than the amount of food consumed at home. This equates to approximately 1,800 grams (g) of food consumed per tourist per day.

Although tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, (Gössling, 2000 ), assessments reveal that such pursuits have a significant carbon footprint, as tourism is significantly more carbon intensive than other potential areas of economic development (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Tourism is dependent on energy, and virtually all energy use in the tourism sector is derived from fossil fuels, which contribute to global greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change. Energy use for tourism has been estimated to be approximately 3,575 megajoules 2 (MJ) per trip, including energy for travel and accommodations (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). A previous estimate of global carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from tourism provided values of 1.12 gigatons 3 (Gt) of CO 2 , amounting to about 3% of global CO 2 -equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). However, these analyses do not cover the supply chains underpinning tourism and do not therefore represent true carbon footprints. A more complete analysis of the emissions from energy consumption necessary to sustain the tourism sector would include food and beverages, infrastructure construction and maintenance, retail, and financial services. Between 2009 and 2013 , tourism’s global carbon footprint is estimated to have increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO 2 e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). The majority of this footprint is exerted by and within high-income countries. The rising global demand for tourism is outstripping efforts at decarbonization of tourism operations and as a result is accelerating global carbon emissions.

Social Impacts of Tourism

The social impacts of tourism have been widely studied, with an emphasis on residents’ perceptions in the host community (Sharpley, 2014 ). Case studies include research conducted in Australia (Faulkner & Tideswell, 1997 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Tovar & Lockwood, 2008 ), Belize (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ), China (Gu & Ryan, 2008 ), Fiji (King et al., 1993 ), Greece (Haralambopoulos & Pizam, 1996 ; Tsartas, 1992 ), Hungary (Rátz, 2000 ), Thailand (Huttasin, 2008 ), Turkey (Kuvan & Akan, 2005 ), the United Kingdom (Brunt & Courtney, 1999 ; Haley et al., 2005 ), and the United States (Andereck et al., 2005 ; Milman & Pizam, 1988 ), among others. The social impacts of tourism are difficult to measure, and most published studies are mainly concerned with the social impacts on the host communities rather than the impacts on the tourists themselves.

Studies of residents’ perceptions of tourism are typically conducted using household surveys. In most cases, residents recognize the economic dependence on tourism for income, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that working in or owning a business in tourism or a related industry is associated with more positive perceptions of tourism (Andereck et al., 2007 ). The perceived nature of negative effects is complex and often conveys a dislike of crowding, traffic congestion, and higher prices for basic needs (Deery et al., 2012 ). When the number of tourists far exceeds that of the resident population, negative attitudes toward tourism may manifest (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ). However, residents who recognize negative impacts may not necessarily oppose tourism development (King et al., 1993 ).

In some regions, little is known about the social and cultural impacts of tourism despite its dominance as an economic sector. Tourism is a rapidly growing sector in Cuba, and it is projected to grow at rates that exceed the average projected growth rates for the Caribbean and the world overall (Salinas et al., 2018 ). Still, even though there has been rapid tourism development in Cuba, there has been little research related to the environmental and sociocultural impacts of this tourism growth (Rutty & Richardson, 2019 ).

In some international tourism contexts, studies have found that residents are generally resentful toward tourism because it fuels inequality and exacerbates racist attitudes and discrimination (Cabezas, 2004 ; Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Mbaiwa, 2005 ). Other studies revealed similar narratives and recorded statements of exclusion and socioeconomic stratification (Sanchez & Adams, 2008 ). Local residents often must navigate the gaps in the racialized, gendered, and sexualized structures imposed by the global tourism industry and host-country governments (Cabezas, 2004 ).

However, during times of economic crisis, residents may develop a more permissive view as their perceptions of the costs of tourism development decrease (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). This increased positive attitude is not based on an increase in the perception of positive impacts of tourism, but rather on a decrease in the perception of the negative impacts.

There is a growing body of research on Indigenous and Aboriginal tourism that emphasizes justice issues such as human rights and self-empowerment, control, and participation of traditional owners in comanagement of destinations (Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Ryan & Huyton, 2000 ; Whyte, 2010 ).

Sustainability of Tourism

A process or system is said to be sustainable to the extent that it is robust, resilient, and adaptive (Anderies et al., 2013 ). By most measures, the global tourism system does not meet these criteria for sustainability. Tourism is not robust in that it cannot resist threats and perturbations, such as economic shocks, public health pandemics, war, and other disruptions. Tourism is not resilient in that it does not easily recover from failures, such as natural disasters or civil unrest. Furthermore, tourism is not adaptive in that it is often unable to change in response to external conditions. One example that underscores the failure to meet all three criteria is the dependence of tourism on fossil fuels for transportation and energy, which are key inputs for tourism development. This dependence itself is not sustainable (Wheeller, 2007 ), and thus the sustainability of tourism is questionable.

Liu ( 2003 ) notes that research related to the role of tourism in sustainable development has emphasized supply-side concepts such as sustaining tourism resources and ignored the demand side, which is particularly vulnerable to social and economic shocks. Tourism is vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include disaster vulnerability in coastal Thailand (Calgaro & Lloyd, 2008 ), bushfires in northeast Victoria in Australia (Cioccio & Michael, 2007 ), forest fires in British Columbia, Canada (Hystad & Keller, 2008 ); and outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom (Miller & Ritchie, 2003 ).

Like most other economic sectors, tourism is vulnerable to the impacts of earthquakes, particularly in areas where tourism infrastructure may not be resilient to such shocks. Numerous studies have examined the impacts of earthquake events on tourism, including studies of the aftermath of the 1997 earthquake in central Italy (Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001 ), the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan (Huan et al., 2004 ; Huang & Min, 2002 ), and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in western Sichuan, China (Yang et al., 2011 ), among others.

Tourism is vulnerable to extreme weather events. Regional economic strength has been found to be associated with lower vulnerability to natural disasters. Kim and Marcoullier ( 2015 ) examined the vulnerability and resilience of 10 tourism-based regional economies that included U.S. national parks or protected seashores situated on the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean coastline that were affected by several hurricanes over a 26-year period. Regions with stronger economic characteristics prior to natural disasters were found to have lower disaster losses than regions with weaker economies.

Tourism is extremely sensitive to oil spills, whatever their origin, and the volume of oil released need not be large to generate significant economic losses (Cirer-Costa, 2015 ). Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to the localized shock of an oil spill include research on the impacts of oil spills in Alaska (Coddington, 2015 ), Brazil (Ribeiro et al., 2020 ), Spain (Castanedo et al., 2009 ), affected regions in the United States along the Gulf of Mexico (Pennington-Gray et al., 2011 ; Ritchie et al., 2013 ), and the Republic of Korea (Cheong, 2012 ), among others. Future research on the vulnerability of tourist destinations to oil spills should also incorporate freshwater environments, such as lakes, rivers, and streams, where the rupture of oil pipelines is more frequent.

Significant attention has been paid to assessing the vulnerability of tourist destinations to acts of terrorism and the impacts of terrorist attacks on regional tourist economies (Liu & Pratt, 2017 ). Such studies include analyses of the impacts of terrorist attacks on three European countries, Greece, Italy, and Austria (Enders et al., 1992 ); the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States (Goodrich, 2002 ); terrorism and tourism in Nepal (Bhattarai et al., 2005 ); vulnerability of tourism livelihoods in Bali (Baker & Coulter, 2007 ); the impact of terrorism on tourist preferences for destinations in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands (Arana & León, 2008 ); the 2011 massacres in Olso and Utøya, Norway (Wolff & Larsen, 2014 ); terrorism and political violence in Tunisia (Lanouar & Goaied, 2019 ); and the impact of terrorism on European tourism (Corbet et al., 2019 ), among others. Pizam and Fleischer ( 2002 ) studied the impact of acts of terrorism on tourism demand in Israel between May 1991 and May 2001 , and they confirmed that the frequency of acts of terrorism had caused a larger decline in international tourist arrivals than the severity of these acts. Most of these are ex post studies, and future assessments of the underlying conditions of destinations could reveal a deeper understanding of the vulnerability of tourism to terrorism.

Tourism is vulnerable to economic crisis, both local economic shocks (Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005 ; Stylidis & Terzidou, 2014 ) and global economic crisis (Papatheodorou et al., 2010 ; Smeral, 2010 ). Okumus and Karamustafa ( 2005 ) evaluated the impact of the February 2001 economic crisis in Turkey on tourism, and they found that the tourism industry was poorly prepared for the economic crisis despite having suffered previous impacts related to the Gulf War in the early 1990s, terrorism in Turkey in the 1990s, the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, an internal economic crisis in 1994 , and two earthquakes in the northwest region of Turkey in 1999 . In a study of the attitudes and perceptions of citizens of Greece, Stylidis and Terzidou ( 2014 ) found that economic crisis is associated with increased support for tourism development, particularly out of self-interest. Economic crisis diminishes residents’ concern for environmental issues. In a study of the behavior of European tourists amid an economic crisis, Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria ( 2014 ) found that the probability of households cutting back on travel expenditures depends largely on the climate and economic conditions of tourists’ home countries, and households that do reduce travel spending engage in tourism closer to home.

Becken and Lennox ( 2012 ) studied the implications of a long-term increase in oil prices for tourism in New Zealand, and they estimate that a doubling of oil prices is associated with a 1.7% decrease in real gross national disposable income and a 9% reduction in the real value of tourism exports. Chatziantoniou et al. ( 2013 ) investigated the relationship among oil price shocks, tourism variables, and economic indicators in four European Mediterranean countries and found that aggregate demand oil price shocks generated a lagged effect on tourism-generated income and economic growth. Kisswani et al. ( 2020 ) examined the asymmetric effect of oil prices on tourism receipts and the sensitive susceptibility of tourism to oil price changes using nonlinear analysis. The findings document a long-run asymmetrical effect for most countries, after incorporating the structural breaks, suggesting that governments and tourism businesses and organizations should interpret oil price fluctuations cautiously.

Finally, the sustainability of tourism has been shown to be vulnerable to the outbreak of infectious diseases, including the impact of the Ebola virus on tourism in sub-Saharan Africa (Maphanga & Henama, 2019 ; Novelli et al., 2018 ) and in the United States (Cahyanto et al., 2016 ). The literature also includes studies of the impact of swine flu on tourism demand in Brunei (Haque & Haque, 2018 ), Mexico (Monterrubio, 2010 ), and the United Kingdom (Page et al., 2012 ), among others. In addition, rapid assessments of the impacts of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have documented severe disruptions and cessations of tourism because of unprecedented global travel restrictions and widespread restrictions on public gatherings (Gössling et al., 2020 ; Qiu et al., 2020 ; Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and car rentals have all experienced a significant decrease globally because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shock to the industry is significant enough to warrant concerns about the long-term outlook (Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Qiu et al. ( 2020 ) estimated the social costs of the pandemic to tourism in three cities in China (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Wuhan), and they found that most respondents were willing to pay for risk reduction and action in responding to the pandemic crisis; there was no significant difference between residents’ willingness to pay in the three cities. Some research has emphasized how lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic can prepare global tourism for an economic transformation that is needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change (Brouder, 2020 ; Prideaux et al., 2020 ).

It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, contested, and potentially paradoxical. This is due, in part, to the contested nature of sustainable development itself. Tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ), and many countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development has been viewed as an important sector for investment to enhance economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security, and the sector provides an alternative opportunity to large-scale development projects and extractive industries that contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and cultural values. However, global evidence from research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been realized (Liu, 2003 ).

The role of tourism in sustainable development has been studied extensively and with a variety of perspectives, including the conceptualization of alternative or responsible forms of tourism and the examination of economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism development. The research has generally concluded that tourism development has contributed to sustainable development in some cases where it is demonstrated to have provided support for biodiversity conservation initiatives and livelihood development strategies. As an economic sector, tourism is considered to be labor intensive, providing opportunities for poor households to enhance their livelihood through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists.

Nature-based tourism approaches such as ecotourism and community-based tourism have been successful at attracting tourists to parks and protected areas, and their spending provides financial support for biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, and economic growth in developing countries. Nevertheless, studies of the impacts of tourism development have documented negative environmental impacts locally in terms of land use, food and water consumption, and congestion, and globally in terms of the contribution of tourism to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases related to transportation and other tourist activities. Studies of the social impacts of tourism have documented experiences of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, race, sex, and national identity.

The sustainability of tourism as an economic sector has been examined in terms of its vulnerability to civil conflict, economic shocks, natural disasters, and public health pandemics. Most studies conclude that tourism may have positive impacts for regional development and environmental conservation, but there is evidence that tourism inherently generates negative environmental impacts, primarily through pollutions stemming from transportation. The regional benefits of tourism development must be considered alongside the global impacts of increased transportation and tourism participation. Global tourism has also been shown to be vulnerable to economic crises, oil price shocks, and global outbreaks of infectious diseases. Given that tourism is dependent on energy, the movement of people, and the consumption of resources, virtually all tourism activities have significant economic, environmental, and sustainable impacts. As such, the role of tourism in sustainable development is highly questionable. Future research on the role of tourism in sustainable development should focus on reducing the negative impacts of tourism development, both regionally and globally.

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• Weaver, D. B. (2014). Asymmetrical dialectics of sustainable tourism: Toward enlightened mass tourism. Journal of Travel Research , 53 (2), 131–140.
• Wheeller, B. (2007). Sustainable mass tourism: More smudge than nudge the canard continues. Tourism Recreation Research , 32 (3), 73–75.
• Whitford, M. , & Ruhanen, L. (2016). Indigenous tourism research, past and present: Where to from here? Journal of Sustainable Tourism , 24 (8–9), 1080–1099.
• Whyte, K. P. (2010). An environmental justice framework for indigenous tourism. Environmental Philosophy , 7 (2), 75–92.
• Wolff, K. , & Larsen, S. (2014). Can terrorism make us feel safer? Risk perceptions and worries before and after the July 22nd attacks. Annals of Tourism Research , 44 , 200–209.
• Yang, W. , Wang, D. , & Chen, G. (2011). Reconstruction strategies after the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, China. Tourism Management , 32 (4), 949–956.
• Young, G. (1973). Tourism—blessing or blight? Penguin.
• Zapata, M. J. , Hall, C. M. , Lindo, P. , & Vanderschaeghe, M. (2011). Can community-based tourism contribute to development and poverty alleviation? Lessons from Nicaragua. Current Issues in Tourism , 14 (8), 725–749.

1. One megatonne (Mt) is equal to 1 million (10 6 ) metric tons.

2. One megajoule (MJ) is equal to 1 million (10 6 ) joules, or approximately the kinetic energy of a 1-megagram (tonne) vehicle moving at 161 km/h.

3. One gigatonne (Gt) is equal to 1 billion (10 9 ) metric tons.

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Tackling the Environmental Impact of Tourism in India: A Call for Sustainable Practices

Reported By : Swati Chaturvedi

Last Updated: May 30, 2024, 13:48 IST

New Delhi, India

India ranks as the fourth-largest contributor to the tourism carbon footprint globally, following the United States, China, and Germany.

Sustainable tourism practices are essential for balancing economic benefits with environmental responsibility.

As a leading driver of global economic expansion, tourism significantly impacts the environment—a factor often overlooked. Recent studies reveal that India is a substantial contributor to the fourfold increase in carbon emissions linked to tourism. In fact, India ranks as the fourth-largest contributor to the tourism carbon footprint globally, following the United States, China, and Germany. This alarming revelation underscores the urgent need for sustainable business practices, especially in rapidly growing countries like India.

• The Environmental Footprint of Tourism Tourism’s footprint encompasses the environmental, economic, and societal impacts of its activities. Environmentally, this footprint includes carbon emissions from travel (cars, planes, and cruises), lodging, and tourism activities, collectively accounting for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, tourism significantly contributes to resource usage, such as waste production and excessive water consumption in hotels and resorts, leading to the degradation of natural and marine habitats.
• Post-Pandemic Recovery and Its Environmental Impact Pranav Dangi, CEO & Founder, The Hosteller, says, “Post-pandemic, the tourism industry has shown remarkable recovery, driven by pent-up travel demand and rising disposable incomes, particularly among India’s burgeoning middle class. This resurgence has led to a marked shift towards domestic tourism, driven by travel restrictions and changing traveler preferences. However, the environmental impact remains substantial, necessitating investments in energy-efficient infrastructure and low-carbon transport solutions.”
• Sustainable Tourism: The Way Forward Sustainable tourism techniques are the future. The travel industry’s carbon footprint can be significantly reduced by utilizing technological advancements like AI-powered travel planning and eco-friendly lodging. “Implementing measures such as waste reduction, energy efficiency, and the use of locally available resources can reduce the environmental footprint while fostering economic and social transformations that benefit global communities,” adds Dangi.
• The Dual Nature of Tourism’s Impact Shailendra Singh Rao, Founder, Creduce, highlights the dual nature of tourism’s impact, it provides economic advantages but also substantially contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. The industry has experienced significant growth following the Covid-19 pandemic, with a resurgence in travel driven by Prime Minister Modi’s advocacy for aggressive inbound travel to local destinations.Sustainable Travel International estimates that tourism is responsible for approximately 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, equating to about 4.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2013, with a projected increase to 6.5 gigatonnes by 2025 if current trends continue. Air travel, accounting for about 12% of the industry’s footprint, is a primary polluter, along with the energy consumption of hotels, resorts, and other accommodations.
• India’s Tourism Carbon Footprint A 2018 investigation by Mongabay India found that the carbon footprint of Indian travelers is the fourth-largest in the world. Regardless of the tourist’s origin, emissions generated within India from tourism activities are considered under destination-based accounting. “Residence-based accounting evaluates emissions based on the tourist’s place of residence. The study found that the United States has the highest footprint in both categories, while India’s footprint is significantly lower under destination-based accounting than under residence-based accounting. This implies a higher number of domestic travelers in India compared to international outbound tourism,” adds Rao.
• Promoting Sustainable Travel Practices in India Despite having a smaller footprint than developed nations, India has the potential to significantly reduce its tourism emissions. This can be achieved by promoting sustainable travel practices such as eco-tourism, responsible waste management in accommodations, and increasing the popularity of public transportation for tourist travel. Rao shares, “The carbon footprint can be substantially diminished by selecting environmentally friendly alternatives such as electric vehicles, buses, and trains. Staying in hotels and eco-lodges that prioritize sustainable practices can also mitigate environmental impact.”

In conclusion, sustainable tourism practices are essential for balancing economic benefits with environmental responsibility. By embracing technological innovations and promoting eco-friendly travel options, India can significantly reduce its tourism-related carbon emissions, contributing to global efforts to combat climate change. The tourism industry must adopt these sustainable practices to ensure a greener future for the planet and its people.

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40 Facts About Elektrostal

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 01 Jun 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy , materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes , offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development .

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy , with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

Elektrostal's fascinating history, vibrant culture, and promising future make it a city worth exploring. For more captivating facts about cities around the world, discover the unique characteristics that define each city . Uncover the hidden gems of Moscow Oblast through our in-depth look at Kolomna. Lastly, dive into the rich industrial heritage of Teesside, a thriving industrial center with its own story to tell.

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Impact of tourism development upon environmental sustainability: a suggested framework for sustainable ecotourism

Qadar bakhsh baloch.

1 Abasyn University, Peshawar, Pakistan

Syed Naseeb Shah

Nadeem iqbal.

2 Air University School of Management, Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Muhammad Sheeraz

3 Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan

Muhammad Asadullah

4 IBA, Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan

Sourath Mahar

5 University of Sialkot, Sialkot, Pakistan

Asia Umar Khan

6 Islamia College University Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan

Associated Data

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on request.

The empirical research investigated the relationship between tourism development and environmental suitability to propose a framework for sustainable ecotourism. The framework suggested a balance between business and environmental interests in maintaining an ecological system with the moderating help of government support and policy interventions. The study population encompasses tourism stakeholders, including tourists, representatives from local communities, members of civil administration, hoteliers, and tour operators serving the areas. A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed to respondents, along with a brief description of key study variables to develop a better understanding. After verifying the instrument’s reliability and validity, data analysis was conducted via hierarchical regression. The study findings revealed that a substantial number of people perceive socio-economic benefits, including employment and business openings, infrastructure development from tourism development, and growth. However, the state of the natural and environmental capital was found to be gradually degrading. Alongside the social environment, social vulnerability is reported due to the overutilization of land, intrusion from external cultures, and pollution in air and water due to traffic congestion, accumulation of solid waste, sewage, and carbon emissions. The study suggested a model framework for the development of sustained ecotourism, including supportive government policy interventions to ensure effective conservation of environmental and natural resources without compromising the economic viability and social well-beings of the locals. Furthermore, the variables and the constructs researched can be replicated to other destinations to seek valuable inputs for sustainable destination management elsewhere.

Introduction

Tourism is a vibrant force that stimulates travel to explore nature, adventures, wonders, and societies, discover cultures, meet people, interact with values, and experience new traditions and events. Tourism development attracts tourists to a particular destination to develop and sustain a tourism industry. Moreover, environmental sustainability is the future-based conscious effort aimed at conserving socio-cultural heritage and preserving natural resources to protect environmental ecosystems through supporting people’s health and economic well-being. Environment sustainability can be reflected in clean and green natural landscaping, thriving biodiversity, virgin sea beaches, long stretches of desert steppes, socio-cultural values, and archeological heritage that epitomize tourists’ degree of motivation and willingness of the local community to welcome the visitors. In this context, tourism growth and environmental sustainability are considered interdependent constructs; therefore, the increase in tourism development and tourists’ arrivals directly affects the quality of sustained and green tourism (Azam et al. 2018 ; Hassan et al.  2020 ; Sun et al. 2021 ).

According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), tourism is one of the fastest-growing industries, contributing more than 10% to the global GDP (UNWTO 2017; Mikayilov et al. 2019 ). Twenty-five million international tourists in 1950 grew to 166 million in 1970, reaching 1.442 billion in 2018 and projected to be 1.8 billion by 2030. Mobilizing such a substantial human tourist’s mass is most likely to trickle environmental pollution along with its positive effects on employment, wealth creation, and the economy. The local pollution at tourist destinations may include air emissions, noise, solid waste, littering, sewage, oil and chemicals, architectural/visual pollution, heating, car use, and many more. In addition, an uncontrolled, overcrowded, and ill-planned tourist population has substantial adverse effects on the quality of the environment. It results in the over-consumption of natural resources, degradation of service quality, and an exponential increase in wastage and pollution. Furthermore, tourism arrivals beyond capacity bring problems rather than a blessing, such as leaving behind soil erosion, attrition of natural resources, accumulation of waste and air pollution, and endangering biodiversity, decomposition of socio-cultural habitats, and virginity of land and sea (Kostić et al. 2016 ; Shaheen et al. 2019 ; Andlib and Salcedo-Castro  2021 ).

Tourism growth and environmental pollution have been witnessed around the globe in different regions. The ASEAN countries referred to as heaven for air pollution, climate change, and global warming are experiencing economic tourism and pollution (Azam et al. 2018 ; Guzel and Okumus 2020 ). In China, more than fifty-eight major Chinese tourism destinations are inviting immediate policy measures to mitigate air pollution and improve environmental sustainability (Zhang et al. 2020 ). Similarly, Singapore, being a top-visited country, is facing negative ecological footprints and calling for a trade-off between tourism development and environmental sustainability (Khoi et al. 2021 ). The prior studies established that international tourism and the tourism-led growth surge tourists’ arrival, energy consumption, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, and air pollution resultantly cause climate change (Aslan et al. 2021 ). South Asian countries, more specifically Sri Lanka and Pakistan, are on the verge of tourism growth and environmental pollution compared to other countries (Chishti et al. 2020 ; Tiwari et al. 2021 ).

Pakistan is acknowledged in the tourism world because of its magnificent mountains with the densest concentration of high peaks in the world, scenic beauty of Neelum Valley, Murree, Chitral, and swat Valleys’, Kaghan, Naran, Hunza, Gilgit Baltistan (Baloch 2007 ), sacred shrines of Sikhism, archeological sites of the Gandhara and Indus Valley civilizations such as Mohenjo-Daro, Taxila including pre-Islamic Kalasha community (Baloch and Rehman 2015 ). In addition, Pakistan’s hospitable and multicultural society offers rich traditions, customs, and festivals for the tourists to explore, commemorate, cherish, and enjoy. Pakistan’s geographical and socio-cultural environment represents its resource and an opportunity (Baloch and Rehman 2015 ); therefore, Pakistan is looking to capitalize on it as a promising source of the foreign reserve to compensate for its mounting trade deficit (Baloch et al. 2020 ).

Tourism expansion has been established as a very deleterious ecological cost vis-à-vis the socio-economic benefits it passes to the host communities (Pulido-Fernández et al. 2019 ; Simo-Kengne 2022 ). In this context, the research is motivated to investigate the relationships between Pakistan’s tourism development activities and environmental sustainability. Drawing from the arguments of Pulido-Fernández et al. ( 2019 ) and Simo-Kengne ( 2022 ), it is feared that Pakistan’s ongoing determination to tourism development is likely to cause environmental degradation in two ways. Firstly, the tourism infrastructure developmental process would consume natural resources in the form of air and water pollution, loss of nature, and biodiversity. Secondly, the proliferation of tourism-related energy-consuming activities harms the environment by adding CO 2  emissions (Andlib and Saceldo-Castro 2021 ; Chien et al. 2021a ). Therefore, to tape this tourism-rich potential without compromising the sustainability of the natural and socio-cultural environment in the area, there is a dire need to develop Pakistan’s tourism areas into environment-friendly destinations.

Against the backdrop of a widening level of trade deficit, Pakistan’s rich tourism potential is being perceived as an immediate alternative for earning revenue to compensate for the current account gap. However, the developing large-scale tourism industry is considered a threat to deforestation, and air and water pollution, endangering biodiversity trading on resilient ecological credentials. The research study attempts to find an all-inclusive and comprehensive answer to the socio-ecological environmental concerns of tourism development and growth. Therefore, the research investigates the relationship between tourism development and its environmental sustainability to suggest a model framework for the development and growth of Sustainable Ecotourism in Pakistan along with its most visited destinations.

Literature review

Tourism development and growth.

Tourism is considered a force of sound as it benefits travelers and communities in urban and suburban areas. Tourism development is the process of forming and sustaining a business for a particular or mix of segments of tourists’ as per their motivation in a particular area or at a specific destination. Primarily, tourism development refers to the all-encompassing process of planning, pursuing, and executing strategies to establish, develop, promote, and encourage tourism in a particular area or destination (Mandić et al. 2018 ; Ratnasari et al. 2020 ). A tourism destination may serve as a single motivation for a group of tourists or a mix of purposes, i.e., natural tourism, socio-cultural or religious tourism, adventure or business tourism, or a combination of two or more. Andlib and Salcedo-Castro ( 2021 ), drawing from an analysis approach, contended that tourism destinations in Pakistan offer a mix of promising and negative consequences concerning their socio-economic and environmental impressions on the host community. The promising socio-economic impacts for the local community are perceived in the form of employment and business opportunities, improved standard of living, and infrastructural development in the area. The adverse environmental outcomes include overcrowding, traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, environmental degradation, and encroachment of landscaping for the local community and the tourists. An extensive review of the literature exercise suggests the following benefits that the local community and the tourists accrue from the tour are as follows:

• Generate revenue and monetary support for people and the community through local arts and culture commercialization.
• Improve local resource infrastructure and quality of life, including employment generation and access to improved civic facilities.
• Help to create awareness and understanding of different ethnic cultures, social values, and traditions, connecting them and preserving cultures.
• Rehabilitate and conserve socio-cultural and historical heritage, including archeological and natural sites.
• Establishment of natural parks, protracted areas, and scenic beauty spots.
• Conservation of nature, biodiversity, and endangered species with control over animal poaching.
• Improved water and air quality through afforestation, littering control, land and soil conservation, and recycling of used water and waste.

Tourism and hospitality business incorporates various business activities such as travel and transportation through the air or other modes of travel, lodging, messing, restaurants, and tourism destinations (Szpilko 2017 ; Bakhriddinovna and Qizi 2020 ). A tourist’s tourism experience is aimed at leisure, experiencing adventure, learning the culture or history of a particular area or ethnic entity, traveling for business or health, education, or religious purposes. The chain of activities adds value to the Tourism experience. Every activity contributes toward economic stimulation, job creation, revenue generation, and tourism development encompassing infrastructure for all activities involved in the tourism process. Tourism growth expresses the number of arrivals and the time of their stay/trips over a period of time. Tourism growth is measured through the interplay between tourists’ arrivals, tourism receipts, and travel time duration (Song et al. 2010 ; Arifin et al. 2019 ). The following factors drive the degree and level of tourism development and growth:

• Environmental factors include scenic beauty, green spaces, snowy mountains, towering peaks, good climate and weather, the interconnectivity of destination, quality of infrastructure, etc.
• Socio-economic factors: the distinctiveness of community, uniqueness of culture and social values, hospitality and adaptability, accessibility, accommodation, facilities and amenities, cost-effectiveness, price index, and enabling business environment.
• Historical, cultural, and religious factors include historical and cultural heritage, religious sites, and cultural values and experiences.

The tourism development process and its different dynamics revolve around the nature of tourism planned for a particular destination or area, which can be specified as ecotourism, sustainable tourism, green tourism or regenerative tourism, etc. Ecotourism is “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education” (Cheia, 2013 ; TIES, 2015). According to the World Conservation Union (IUCN), ecotourism involves “ Environmentally responsible travel to natural areas, to enjoy and appreciate nature (and accompanying cultural features, both past, and present) that promote conservation, have a low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local peoples ”. Moreover, Blangy and Wood ( 1993 ) defined it as “ responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people ” (p. 32). The concept of ecotourism is grounded upon a well-defined set of principles including “environmental conservation and education, cultural preservation and experience, and economic benefits” (Cobbinah 2015 ; De Grosbois and Fennell 2021 ).

Ecotourism minimizes tourism’s impact on the tourism resources of a specific destination, including lessening physical, social, interactive, and psychosomatic impacts. Ecotourism is also about demonstrating a positive and responsible attitude from the tourists and hosts toward protecting and preserving all components of the environmental ecosystem. Ecotourism reflects a purpose-oriented mindset, responsible for creating and delivering value for the destination with a high degree of kindliness for local environmental, political, or social issues. Ecotourism generally differs from mass tourism because of its following features (Liang et al. 2018 ; Ding and Cao 2019 ; Confente and Scarpi 2021 ):

• Conscientious behavior focuses on the low impact on the environment.
• Sensitivity and warmth for local cultures, values, and biodiversity.
• Supporting the sustenance of efforts for the conservation of local resources.
• Sharing and delivering tourism benefits to the local communities.
• Local participation as a tourism stakeholder in the decision-making process.
• Educating the tourist and locals about the sensitivity and care of the environment because tourism without proper arrangement can endanger the ecosystems and indigenous cultures and lead to significant ecological degradation.

Sustainability aims to recognize all impacts of tourism, minimize the adverse impacts, and maximize the encouraging ones. Sustainable tourism involves sustainable practices to maintain viable support for the ecology of the tourism environment in and around the destination. Sustainable tourism is natural resource-based tourism that resembles ecotourism and focuses on creating travel openings with marginal impact and encouraging learning about nature having a low impact, conservation, and valuable consideration for the local community’s well-being (Fennell 2001 & 2020 ; Butowski 2021 ). On the other hand, ecotourism inspires tourists to learn and care about the environment and effectively participate in the conservation of nature and cultural activities. Therefore, ecotourism is inclusive of sustainable tourism, whereas the focus of sustainable tourism includes the following responsibilities:

• Caring, protecting, and conserving the environment, natural capital, biodiversity, and wildlife.
• Delivering socio-economic welfare for the people living in and around tourists' destinations.
• Identifying, rehabilitating, conserving, and promoting cultural and historical heritage for visitors learning experiences.
• Bringing tourists and local groups together for shared benefits.
• Creating wide-ranging and reachable opportunities for tourists.

Environment and sustainability of ecosystem

The term “environment” is all-inclusive of all the natural, organic living, inorganic, and non-natural things. The environment also denotes the interface among all breathing species with the natural resources and other constituents of the environment. Humans’ activities are mainly responsible for environmental damage as people and nations have contemplated modifying the environment to suit their expediencies. Deforestation, overpopulation, exhaustion of natural capital, and accumulation of solid waste and sewage are the major human activities that result in polluted air and water, acid rain, amplified carbon dioxide levels, depletion of the ozone, climate change, global warming, extermination of species, etc. A clean, green, and hygienic fit environment has clean air, clean water, clean energy, and moderate temperature for the healthy living of humans, animals, and biodiversity as nature is destined for them by their creatures. Maintaining and sustaining a clean environment is indispensable for human and biodiversity existence, fostering growth and development for conducting business and creating wealth. The environment can be sustained through conservation, preservation, and appropriate management to provide clean air, water, and food safe from toxic contamination, waste, and sewage disposal, saving endangered species and land conservation.

The globalization process, known for building socio-economic partnerships across countries, is also charged with encouraging environmental degradation through the over-consumption of natural resources and energy consumption, deforestation, land erosion, and weakening (Adebayo and Kirikkaleli 2021 ; Sun et al. 2021 ). Chien et al. ( 2021b ), while studying the causality of environmental degradation in Pakistan, empirically confirmed the existence of a significant connection between CO 2  emissions and GDP growth, renewable energy, technological innovation, and globalization. However, Chien et al. ( 2021a ) suggested using solar energy as a source of economic intervention to control CO 2  emissions and improve environmental quality in China. The danger of air pollution is hard to escape as microscopic air pollutants pierce through the human respiratory and cardiovascular system, injuring the lungs, heart, and brain. Ill-planned and uncontrolled human activities negatively affect ecosystems, causing climate change, ocean acidification, melting glaciers, habitation loss, eutrophication, air pollution, contaminants, and extinction of endangered species ( Albrich et al. 2020 ) .

Humans have a more significant effect on their physical environment in numerous ways, such as pollution, contamination, overpopulation, deforestation, burning fossil fuels and driving to soil erosion, polluting air and water quality, climate change, etc. UNO Agenda for 2030 “Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) mirrors the common premise that a healthy environment and human health are interlaced as integral to the satisfaction of fundamental human rights, i.e., right to life, well-being, food, water and sanitation, quality of life and biodiversity to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (SDG3)—which includes air quality that is dependent upon terrestrial ecosystems (SDG15), oceans (SDG14), cities (SDG11), water, cleanliness, and hygiene (SDG6) (Swain 2018 ; Opoku 2019 ; Scharlemann et al. 2020 ). The UNEP stated that 58% of diarrhea cases in developing economies is due to the non-provision of clean water and inadequate sanitation facilities resulting in 3.5 million deaths globally (Desai 2016 ; Ekins and Gupta 2019 ).

Climate change overwhelmingly alters ecosystems’ ability to moderate life-threatening happenings, such as maintaining water quality, regulating water flows, unbalancing the temporal weather and maintaining glaciers, displacing or extinction biodiversity, wildfire, and drought (Zhu et al. 2019 ; Marengo et al. 2021 ). Research studies advocate that exposure to natural environments is correlated with mental health, and proximity to green space is associated with lowering stress and minimizing depression and anxiety (Noordzij et al. 2020 ; Slater et al. 2020 ; Callaghan et al. 2021 ). Furthermore, the Ecosystem is affected by pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources, climate change, invasive and displacing species, etc. Hence, providing clean air and water, hygienic places, and green spaces enriches the quality of life: condensed mortality, healthier value-added productivity, and is vital to maintaining mental health. On the other hand, climate change aggravates environment-related health hazards through adverse deviations to terrestrial ecology, oceans, biodiversity, and access to fresh and clean water.

Tourism development denotes all activities linked with creating and processing facilities providing services for the tourists on and around a destination. Infrastructure development is vital for developing a tourism destination to advance tourists’ living conditions and preserve natural and cultural heritage by constructing new tourist facilities, the destinations administrative and supporting echelons, including community living, etc. Development for tourism infrastructure and land use often burdens natural capital through over-consumption, leading to soil erosion, augmented pollution, loss of natural habitats, and endangered species. Development of tourism infrastructure and construction work has profound implications on environmental degradation, reduction in green spaces, deforestation, solid waste and sewage, overutilization of air and water, emission of CO 2 and other gases contributing to air and water pollution, climate change, loss and displacement of biodiversity, and the degradation of ecosystems. These negative consequences of tourism development result in many problems for the tourists and the indigenous people in the foreseeable future (Azam et al. 2018 ; Hoang et al. 2020 ).

A report published by UNEP titled “Infrastructure for climate action” has suggested governments introduce sustainable infrastructure as the prevailing one is responsible for causing 79% of all greenhouse gas emissions in struggling climate change, alleviation, and adaptation efforts. Sustainable infrastructure signifies that structures’ planning, construction, and functioning do not weaken the social, economic, and ecological systems (UNEP 2021 ; Krampe 2021 ). Sustainable infrastructure is the only solution that ensures societies, nature, and the environment flourish together. Therefore, Sustainable Ecotourism supports adapting pro-environment and nature-based climate change strategies that help resilient biodiversity and ecosystem to impact climate change. The proposed strategy is to focus on the conservation and restoration of ecosystems to combat climate hazards, fluctuating rainfalls, soil erosion, temperature variations, floods, and extreme wind storms (Niedziółka 2014 ; Setini 2021 )

Pakistan’s tourism infrastructure suffered a colossal amount of damage during the earthquake of October 8, 2005, which left widespread demolition and destruction to its human, economic assets, and infrastructure networks, especially in Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's tourism areas. The tourism-related infrastructure, including hotels, destination facilities of social service delivery and commerce, water channels, and communications networks, were either drained or virtually destroyed. The destruction in the aftermath of the earthquake was further added by the war against terror in tourism-hit areas, resulting in the redundancy of tourists and tourism facilities for a long time (Akbar et al. 2017 ; Zakaria and Ahmed 2019 ). The tourism revival activities during the post-earth quack, post-terrorism scenario, and COVID-19 period called for various entrepreneurial activities, including the construction of infrastructure, hotels, road networks, community living, etc. Development and reconstruction of the livelihood and hospitality infrastructure through entrepreneurship were undertaken intensively through a public-private partnership from national and international findings (Qamar and Baloch 2017 ; Sadiq 2021 ; Dogar et al. 2021 ).

The revival and reinvigoration of infrastructure in tourism areas were backed up by extensive deforestation, use of local green land, rebuilding of the road network, displacement of biodiversity, and overtaxing the consumption of water and other natural resources. The deforestation, extensive use of green land, and over-consumption of water and other natural resources have depleted the tourism value of the area on the one hand and degraded the environment on the other. However, it was the focused rehabilitation activities of earthquake and Pakistan’s Government’s socio-environment conservation strategy of the Billion Trees plantation program in the province, including dominating tourism areas. The afforestation and loss of green tops are being reclaimed through these efforts, and the tourism environment is soon expected to regenerate (Qamar and Baloch 2017 ; Rauf et al. 2019 ; Siddiqui and Siddiqui 2019 ).

Government support and policy interventions

Tourism generates wide-ranging benefits for the economy, community, and people. Tourism contributes to the economy through revenue generation and shares responsibility with the Government to alleviate poverty alleviation, create opportunities for job placements, protect environments, and conserve natural ecosystems and biodiversity. It is assumed that if the tourism industry is left to its own, it will most likely prefer its business interests over environments or biodiversity. Governments, custodians of the life and well-being of their subjects, are directly responsible for providing a clean environment, nature, and Ecosystem. Therefore, national and local governments are responsible for preparing and implementing tourism development plans and enforcing values and standards for tourism development in conformity with the prerequisites of environmental sustainability. Through institutional governance, governments help tourism development by providing financial and budgetary support, regulatory framework, land, physical resources, infrastructure, etc. Provision and facilitation for Sustainability of Ecotourism and conservation of environment and biodiversity are dependent upon Government-supported interventions as follows:

• The regulatory framework for setting up tourism-related entrepreneurship and quality standards can support ecotourism and prevent environmental degradation on any account.
• Provision of budgetary support for ecosystem conservation and regeneration of bio-diversity-related projects.
• Plan, rehabilitate if needed, promote conservation and protection of socio-cultural, historic, antique, and natural endowments in coordination with other public and private agencies, and deal with the defaulters, if any.
• Promoting and undertaking afforestation alongside land conservation and discouraging deforestation, soil erosion, accumulation of solid waste, littering, and any direct or indirect loss or threat to biodiversity.
• Setting restrictions for over-tourism beyond capacity and quality standards for transportation, restaurants, hotels, food and drinking water, etc.
• Placing enforcement mechanism necessary to ensure application of the regulatory framework and quality standards applicable along with all activities inclusive to the Ecotourism value chain.

Theoretical support and hypothesis development

According to the social disruption theory, rapidly expanding societies usually experience a period of widespread crisis and a loss of their conventional routines and attitudes. The crisis impacts people whose mental health, worldviews, behavioral patterns, and social networks may all be impacted (Çalişkan and Özer 2021 ). According to the social disruption theory, fast community change brought on by population growth will result in a variety of social issues that are signs of a generally disorganized community (Smith et al. 2001 ). Because some types of tourism communities experience rapid expansion accompanied by intensive development and rapid social change over a relatively short period of time, they seem to be great settings for studying various postulations of the social disruption theory.

Place change and social disruption theory are closely connected. According to this assumption, when a community undergoes fast expansion, it tends to experience a generalized crisis that might culminate in several social issues as changes spread throughout the community and among individuals (Rasoolimanesh et al. 2019 ). Place change can result from fundamental community restructuring due to economic development, new class divides, and migration of both long-term and temporary people (Nelson 2001 ). Social unrest, though, is not enduring. Instead, it is transitory; societies gradually adjust to these changes (Deery et al.  2012 ).

The standard of living may initially deteriorate, but due to the adaptability of people and communities, they will gradually reinvigorate and strengthen themselves accordingly. Furthermore, the social disruption proposition reinforces one of the challenges in analyzing the effects of tourism, particularly in emerging nations, since it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the effects of tourism and the overall ongoing development (Park and Stokowski 2009 ) (Fig. ​ (Fig.1 1 ).

• Tourism development and growth significantly affect natural environment resources.
• Tourism development and growth significantly affect environmental pollution.
• Tourism development and growth significantly affect the physical ecosystem of the environment.
• Tourism development and growth significantly affect the socio-cultural environment.
• Tourism development and growth significantly affect the economic environment of people and the community.
• Government policy and support significantly moderate the relationship between tourism development and growth and the environmental factors.

Conceptual framework

Methodology

The study aimed to investigate the association of tourism development and its impact on environmental factors. Therefore, a survey method was employed to collect data by including all the relevant people in the locality. The study is based on stakeholders’ opinions from Pakistan’s most visited tourist areas, including Murree, Swat, Chitral, Naran, Kaghan, Neelum Valley, Malam Jabba, Ayubia, and Nathia Gali. A total of 650 stakeholders were contacted from the above-mentioned tourist destinations through survey. The distribution of the sample is mentioned in Table ​ Table1 1 .

Sample configuration

Field survey—2021

Using quantitative techniques, hierarchical linear regression analysis was employed to investigate the possible relationships between tourism growth and various dimensions of environmental sustainability. The results below reveal that tourism development translates into environmental deterioration, and the relationship between tourism and environmental sustainability is bidirectional.

Tourism growth and development were measured through a five-item scale. The environment was measured through 16 items combined scale with sub-dimensions; depletion of Natural Resources=3 items, Polluting Environment=3 items, Physical Effects on Ecosystem=4 items, Socio-Cultural Degradation=3 items, and Economic Environment=3-items. Similarly, our moderating variable, Government Interventions and Support, was measured using a 5-item scale. Table ​ Table2 2 below presents the details of the instruments.

Instrument reliability

Analysis and results

Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 26. It includes correlation, linear regression, and stepwise hierarchal regression analysis.

Table ​ Table3 3 above shows that our Tourism Growth and Development has significant and positive relationship with Polluting Environment ( r = 0.20**), Physical Effects on Ecosystem ( r = 0.19**), Depletion of Natural Resource ( r = 0.24**), Socio-Cultural Degradation ( r = 0.18**). However, Tourism Growth and Development has positive relationship with Economic Environment ( r = 0.29**) and Government Interventions and Support ( r = 0.13**).

Correlation matrix

* p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01

Results of linear regression analysis at Table ​ Table4 4 above depict that tourism growth and development predicts 4.1% variance in Depletion of Natural Resources ( β = 0.20, p <0.01), 3.9% variance in pollution ( β = 0.19, p <0.01), 6% variance in Physical Effects on Ecosystem ( β = 0.24, p <0.01), 3.6% variance in Socio-Cultural Degradation ( β = 0.18, p <0.01), and 8.8% variance in Economic Environment ( β = 0.29, p <0.01).

Regression analysis for H1–H5

** p  < 0.01

The study analyzes the applied two-step hierarchal regression. In the first step, Tourism Growth and Government Interventions were treated as independent variables, and their significant impact was measured. In the second step, the interaction term Tourism and Growth× Government Interventions was added, and its impact was measured. The results suggest that Government Interventions and Support moderate the relationship between Tourism Growth and the Environmental variables (Table ​ (Table5 5 ).

Moderation analysis

* p  < 0.05;** p  < 0.01

The study has reported unique findings regarding tourism and its environmental impacts. We found that tourism growth and development generate economic activity on the one hand. However, it has specific adverse environmental and socio-cultural outcomes on the other hand as well. Our study revealed that tourism growth and development predict a 4.1% variance in Depletion of Natural Resources ( β = 0.202*, p <0.01). This suggests that due to the expansion of tourism in the country, natural resources are continuously depleted to meet the needs of tourists. Studies also supported our findings and suggested that revival and reinvigoration of infrastructure in tourism areas were backed up by extensive deforestation, use of local green land, rebuilding of the road network, displacement of biodiversity, and overtaxing the consumption of water and other natural resources (Qamar and Baloch 2017 ; Sadiq 2021 ; Dogar et al. 2021 ). The prior studies are consistent with our hypothesis that “tourism development and growth significantly affect natural environment resources.”

We further found that tourism growth and development predict a 3.9% variance in pollution ( β = 0.198*, p <0.01), suggesting that tourism expansion may pollute the natural environment. Furthermore, recent national statistics depict that major human activities at local tourism destinations such as Kalam, Sawat, Muree, and Northern Areas have accumulated solid waste and sewage, resulting in polluted air and water. Further, research also suggests that the overflow of tourists to tourist destinations may adversely affect the environment due to human activities (Noordzij et al. 2020 ; Slater et al. 2020 ; Andlib and Salcedo-Castro  2021 ; Callaghan et al. 2021 ). Thus, it is safe to argue that the growth of tourism has a particularly detrimental effect on the environment. These findings also support our hypothesis, “Tourism development and growth significantly contribute to environmental pollution.”

The results reported that tourism growth and development predict a 6% variance in Physical Effects on the Ecosystem ( β = 0.245*, p <0.01). Studies have reported that deforestation and alteration in species’ natural environment for tourism facilities construction may adversely affect environmental health (Kuvan, 2010 ; Azam et al. 2018 ; Hoang et al. 2020 ; Andlib and Salcedo-Castro  2021 ). During post-terrorism and post-Covid-19 times in Pakistan, millions of local tourists moved to popular tourist destinations that required new infrastructure to accommodate these tourists. Consequently, colossal deforestation and other detrimental human activities have negatively affected ecosystem. These findings also support our hypothesis that tourism development and growth significantly affect the physical ecosystem of the environment.

The study reported a total of 3.6% variance in socio-cultural degradation ( β = 0.189*, p <0.01) due to tourism growth and development. These findings suggest that tourism’s growth and development may lead the inhabitants to imitate the foreign tourists regarding their living standards, which may endanger their traditional culture. Thus, our hypothesis that “tourism development and growth significantly affect the socio-cultural environment” is confirmed.

Further, it was found that tourism growth and development predict an 8.8% variance in the economic environment ( β = 0.297*, p <0.01). It is established from the literature that tourism growth and development generate economic activity in the country. Development projects such as the construction of infrastructure, hotels, and road networks generate economic activity to facilitate international and indigenous tourists, positively affecting the community’s living standard (Baloch et al. 2020 ). Thus, our hypothesis, “tourism development and growth significantly affect economic environment of people and community,” is confirmed.

Due to tourism growth and development, our study reported a 1.8% variance in Government Support and Interventions ( β = .133*, p <0.01). However, more recently, the Government of Pakistan has devised specific interventions that may help curb the adverse impacts of detrimental environmental factors. For example, developmental schemes such as the Billion Trees Plantation drive and Road-Infrastructure Network Development under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative may prove moderators to curb the negative impacts of tourism growth on the environment (Qamar and Baloch 2017 ; Rauf et al. 2019 ; Siddiqui and Siddiqui 2019 ). Therefore, the hypothesis, Government policy and support, significantly moderates the relationship between tourism development and growth with the environment is confirmed based on these findings.

Suggested model for ecotourism framework

Through its detailed review of existing literature, prevailing tourism policies, and empirical inputs from the stakeholders’ perspectives, the study has identified a wide range of obstacles limiting the development and growth of ecotourism in Pakistan. The study suggests National Tourism Management authorities carefully invest in ecotourism destination’s planning and development in coordination with the environment development agency. The suggested model for ecotourism framework is initially meant for the tourism destinations specifically designated for ecotourism. However, selected points can also be extended to the quality management parameters set for the National Parks, Conservation and Protracted Areas, Museums, National or International event sites, etc. The national tourism authorities are to lay particular emphasis in their forthcoming National Tourism Policy on the development and promotion of Sustainable Ecotourism having, with focus on the following key areas:

• Identify and classify four to five ecotourism destinations, including ecotourism-centered activities of value chains for priority development, which are administratively possible within budgetary constraints. However, the development plan shall consider the integral benefits of other developmental schemes such as the Billion Trees Plantation drive, Road-Infrastructure Network Development under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative, International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) programs in the area.
• While staying within the alignment of UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) calling for ‘environmental sustainability’ and the development vision of each designated destination, the Tourists Management System shall take into cognizance of issues like managing capacity of the place, quality parameters for the conservation of the environment, and allowable activities thereof.
• Identify degenerated destinations of religious, socio-cultural, or historical significance for their rehabilitation under the Regenerated tourism program.
• i. To deflect the tourist pressure upon these destinations, the potential tourists from nearby cities and metropolitan areas be provided with nearby alternative destinations for leisure tourism as stay-tourism sites.
• ii. To prevent the environment from air pollution, the traffic load on the destination be curtailed through an effective traffic management strategy, provision of off-destination parking for combustion engine vehicles, and encouraging electric driven or hybrid vehicles for nearby parking.
• iii. Provision of clean drinking water through public infiltration plants, public toilets, solid waste carriers, and recycling of sewage and used water is recommended in the most visited areas of the destination.
• iv. Signposting at appropriate places, giving social messages encouraging to maintain cleanliness, avoid littering, ensure nature conservation, and humility toward biodiversity.
• Develop all-inclusive, comprehensive execution plans to expedite the investments for the sustainable ecotourism, encouraging public–private cooperation, community involvement, and infrastructure mapping guaranteeing environmental conservation and safeguards.
• Develop and place on the ground an all-inclusive program of capacity building for sustainable ecotourism, regenerative and green tourism services.
• Develop and launch Pakistan tourism profile and Sustaining Ecotourism obligatory framework “to promote tourism on the one hand and nurture conscious ecological behavior among the potential tourists of the area”.
• In order to fetch local ownership for the ecotourism center developments, all efforts shall be made to share the socio-economic benefits integral to the development scheme with the local population for community development.
• As part of the destination management planning, identify complementary value chains and livelihood activities that could be developed as part of the overall ecotourism destination package.
• i. Setting new quality standards facilitating the promotion of ecotourism and environmental sustainability through acts of various bodies operating in the Ecotourism value chain, such as:
• Revision of Private hotels Management Act (1976) and Tourists Operators Act (1976) alongside introduction and promulgation of a new “Tourism Destination Management Act” incorporating new quality standards as of today.
• Promulgating laws to make all new construction/development projects responsible from any agency in the area, incorporating quality standards needed for environmental sustainability, and promoting ecotourism.
• Set measures for the preservation of the local biodiversity and preservation of endangered species, including seeking support from internationally active environment conservation agencies, declaring local hunting illegal, introducing licensing programs for hunting of certain selected animals/ birds on the payment of a handsome amount to be used for the welfare of the local community.
• Create awareness programs against deforestation, land conservation, and biodiversity, and maintain cleanliness, inculcating a culture of respecting and enjoying nature instead of spoiling it.

Conclusion, implications, and limitations of the study

The study premise was based on the contention that sustenance of ecotourism focuses on the economic viability of the business interests alongside the conservation and preservation of natural ecosystems, including ethical fairness to the socio-cultural environment of the host community. Ecotourism is a phenomenon that contributes to environmental sustainability through well-planned and careful destination management capable of balancing conflicting interests of business growth and environmental sustainability. Tourism-environment paradox suggests that the sustainability and survival of both are dependent upon the flourishing mode of each other. Quality of environment and sustainability of bio-ecosystem stimulates tourists’ arrivals and over-tourism beyond capacity with irresponsible behavior from tourists negatively influencing the environment and harming the ecosystem of nature. Ecotourism is not inevitably sustainable unless it is economically sustainable and environmentally maintainable besides being socio-culturally acceptable. Socio-culturally intolerable ecotourism means the activity which does not benefit locals and their socio-cultural values. Hence, the study concludes that ecotourism has to positively interplay between economy, environment, and culture without compromising one over others. The pursuit of sustainable ecotourism is not an end in meeting the little comforts of the business interests but rather a means to end the sustainability issues created due to ill-conceived tourism development and unmanageable growth.

Practical implications

Drawing from the findings and conclusions of the research, the study extends the following practical implications for effectively managing the process of tourism development and environmental sustainability in line with the dictates of the philosophy behind ecotourism:

• Paradoxically tourism necessitates ecological capitals as primary ingredients for the creation of tourism experiences on the one hand. However, it is also contingent upon the conservation and preservation of ecological integrity on the other. The study suggests that unbalancing this “resource paradox” results in the harshness and tenacity of adversarial climate change, natural calamities, environmental pollution, and endangered biodiversity.
• The research findings and the suggested framework for ecotourism imply that sustainable ecotourism principles-based planning is mandatory for destination management to assure effective trade-off between the business interests’ sustainability of the environmental ecosystem.
• Tourism development and growth shall be steered through ecotourism principles as its sustainable model offers enduring social, environmental and economic, ecological integrity, and social and cultural benefits for the local community. Therefore, ecotourism is a recipe for preventing environmental degradation and guarantees sustainability of ecosystems nature and its biodiversity. Hence, ecotourism shall stand central priority focus for strategic management to nurture quality experiences from sustainable tourism.
• To revive back the sustainability of the environment, in the areas where over-tourism has degraded the environment, schemes for regenerated tourism shall be immediately launched to mitigate the negative footprints on the sustainability of destinations, including reinforcing protracted conservation sites, biodiversity, and recouping endangered species, afforestation drives, recycling of water and solid waste, refurnishing of landscaping, preservation, and rehabilitation of cultural heritage and refurbishing of depleted infrastructure accordingly. Furthermore, to regenerate and sustain the tourism infrastructure of the destinations experiencing over-tourism, capacity building measures like capacity, recycling of water and solid waste, preventive measures to control air and water pollution, traffic control management, and spread of entertainment facilities shall be the focus of the regeneration plans.
• The study implies that government authorities and policymakers have a special role in placing their moderating intervention in terms of policy guidelines, regulatory framework, and budgetary support, provision of inter-organizational synergy in planning and implementation of ecotourism strategies, protection of environmental resource base and conservation of natural and biological ecosystem, sustenance of socio-cultural value of local community over and above their economic and social well-being/quality life for the long run.
• The study also implies that public and private policymakers lay down threshold criteria for responsible travel and tourism standards for destination management and its related supply chain. The laid criterion would facilitate management in nurturing “responsible behavior” to plan, protect, conserve, preserve, and sustain natural and cultural resources and responsible socio-economic development without compromising the sustainability of the environment and long-term well-being of the hoist community. The deep-seated adherence to social responsibility protocols by the tourism supply chain network can significantly increase the capacity of tourism destinations and improve the conscious awareness of green consumers along the tourism supply chain. Furthermore, the consciously responsible behavior among stakeholders and legislatures can strike a needed balance between the business interests and environments in favor of sustainability of socio-cultural, economic, and natural capital.
• The study elucidates that responsible behavior necessitates purpose-built eco-friendly infrastructure and policy parameters to support the sustainability of environments across destinations. The strategic planning aligned with the sustainability-focused objectives dictates the need for artistic, innovative, and talented people and quality intuitions in harnessing quality tourism services and responsible tourism behavior. Furthermore, the study encourages community involvement in the developmental process, enactment of structural policies, preservation of socio-cultural heritage, and conservation of natural biodiversity as it would foster emotional bondage between the people of the host community and the tourism undertakings. Therefore, community and value chain managers shall collaborate to maximize the perceived benefits of responsible tourism while developing cultural exchanges and planning opportunities for leisure and tourism.
• Regulatory measures help offset negative impacts; for instance, controls on the number of tourist activities and movement of visitors within protected areas can limit impacts on the ecosystem and help maintain the integrity and vitality of the site. Limits should be established after an in-depth analysis of the maximum sustainable visitor capacity. Furthermore, the variables and the constructs researched can be replicated to other destinations to seek valuable inputs for sustainable destination management elsewhere.

Study limitation

Besides the functional, practical applications, the study has some limitations. Besides having integral disadvantages of cross-sectional research, the respondents selected for the study were visitors on peak days with the highest tourist arrivals, thereby having experiences of a higher degree of environmental pollution and natural disorder. Furthermore, the research is limited to stakeholders’ perspectives instead of any scientifically generated data or mathematical or econometric model.

Author contribution

QBB: conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft. SNS: data curation and supervision. NI: visualization, editing, proofreading. MS: review and editing. MA: review and editing. SM: editing, data curation. AUK: review and editing.

Data availability

Declarations.

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. We also declare that we do not have human participants, data, or tissue.

We do not have any person’s data in any form.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Qadar Bakhsh Baloch, Email: moc.liamg@bqhcolabrd .

Syed Naseeb Shah, Email: moc.liamtoh@hahs_beesan .

Nadeem Iqbal, Email: moc.oohay@1labqimeedanrd .

Muhammad Sheeraz, Email: [email protected] .

Muhammad Asadullah, Email: moc.liamg@apmdasa .

Sourath Mahar, Email: moc.oohay@mhtaros .

Asia Umar Khan, Email: kp.ude.pci@ramu-aisa .

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Environmental sustainability and tourism growth: convergence or compensation?

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• Published: 29 May 2024

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• Viviana Torres-Díaz 1 , 2 ,
• María de la Cruz del Río-Rama   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9396-9341 3 ,
• José Álvarez-García 4 &
• Biagio Simonetti 5 , 6 , 7  

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In addition to the socio-economic advantages, tourism has been proven to be one of the most important sectors with adverse environmental effects. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between tourism and environmental sustainability by using a panel data from 32 countries in Latin America and the European Union for the period 2000–2019. Several techniques of cointegration and convergence of clusters are used to meet this objective. The empirical results show that on average, tourism growth has a negative impact on the environment in the two groups of countries, which could be attributed to the heterogeneity of the level of regional tourism development. On the other hand, the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability is evident at different adjustment speeds in the different sample panels. It generates empirical evidence on whether the current expansion of the tourism sector in Latin American and European countries entails significant environmental externalities by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of environmental sustainability and foreign tourist arrivals as an economic indicator.

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1 Introduction

Over the past decades, countries have experienced rapid economic growth around the world (Koengkan et al. 2019 ). In line with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), more than 900 million tourists made international trips during the year 2022, twice as many as in 2021. This figure is 63% of the pre-pandemic level. In general, the number of international tourists has increased in all regions of the world. Europe, with 585 million arrivals in 2022, has reached almost 80% of pre-pandemic levels. Africa and North, Central and South America reached about 65% of pre-pandemic visitor levels (UNWTO 2023 ).

Tourism is one of the important factors that can affect the environmental and economic situation of any economy (Ozturk et al. 2023 ). Thus, tourism and economic growth have been found to go hand in hand, especially in tourist destinations (Adedoyin et al. 2021 ). In addition, tourism transfers economic income from developed to developing countries (Danish and Wang 2018 ). However, despite the benefits that tourism provides, it also affects environmental quality, as increased international tourism not only stimulates economic growth, but also increases energy consumption (Bojanic and Warnick 2020 ; Danish and Wang 2018 ) and the use of products derived from the extraction of natural resources (Robaina-Alves et al. 2016 ).

Therefore, most of the empirical and theoretical studies have argued that tourism contributes significantly to environmental degradation (Shahbaz et al. 2021 ; Danish and Wang 2018 ), so this relationship has been studied from two perspectives. The first perspective focuses on testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, which is an inverted U-shaped relationship between pollutants and economic growth. Based on Kuznets ( 1955 ), this theory was put forth by scholars Grossman and Krueger ( 1991 ). According to this idea, economic expansion affects environmental degradation as measured by CO 2 emissions to a point when it becomes sustainable and has a negative influence (Arbulú et al. 2015 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Mikayilov et al. 2019 ; Anser et al. 2020 ; Fethi and Senyucel 2021 ; Porto and Ciaschi 2021 ; Gao et al. 2021 ). The second perspective includes research that examines the relationship between tourism growth and environmental degradation (De Vita et al. 2015 ; Zaman et al. 2016 ; Pablo-Romero et al. 2019 ; Alizadeh 2020 ; Anser et al. 2020 ).

Most of these studies (Kusumawardani and Dewi 2020 ; Rahman 2020 ; Mohammed et al. 2015 ; Ozturk and Al-Mulali 2015 ; Galeotti et al. 2006 ) have analyzed the relationship between tourism growth and environmental degradation based on the variables of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. According to Ozturk et al. ( 2023 ), the empirical findings point to a mix of favorable and unfavorable effects of visitor arrivals and CO 2 emissions in the majority of tourist locations. Environmental degradation has been shown to be a multifaceted phenomenon with a variety of indicators, which requires a comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment (Wackernagel and Rees 1998 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Pulido-Fernández et al. 2019 ).

In this regard, some studies (Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Satrovic and Adedoyin 2022 ) have found that the ecological footprint is a more accurate tool for measuring and visualizing the resources that sustain the planet because it considers how dependent humans are on the environment in order support a lifestyle (Kyara et al. 2022 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Elshimy and El-Aasar 2020 ; Figge et al. 2017 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Rojas-Downing et al. 2018 ). In line with this, Gössling ( 2000 ) points out that the relationship between tourism expansion and carbon emissions, as well as evidence of the detrimental effects of fossil fuels used in the industry on the environment are some aspects of the impact of tourism growth on the ecological footprint.

As a result, the main objective of this study is to assess how tourism growth and environmental sustainability in Latin America and the European Union are related. Due to the lack of comprehensive statistical data for all the countries in the region and for all the years, the statistical data from 14 Latin American countries and 18 European countries were used between 2000 and 2019. In order to do this, the present research used convergence cluster analysis, generalized least squares (DOSL), cointegration analysis using unit root and causality tests to examine the relationship between the ecological footprint (global hectares per capita) and the number of international tourist arrivals.

In addition, this study also contributes two important elements to the literature on tourism. First, it generates empirical evidence on whether the current expansion of the tourism sector in Latin American and European countries entails significant environmental externalities by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of environmental sustainability and foreign tourist arrivals as an economic indicator. Second, the research ranks nations based on the likelihood that their environmental performance will be covered, considering the fact that environmental sustainability can be influenced by tourism growth. To do this, the convergence club method presented by Phillips and Su ( 2007 ) is used, which finds three convergence groups with the potential for the final two groups to merge into a single club.

Following this introduction, the study will be divided into the following sections: Sect.  2 presents the bibliographical and empirical review on the topic. In Sect.  3 , two sections are presented: in the first section, the description of the data and bibliographical sources; and, in the second section, the methodologies used are described. Section  4 shows the results obtained, while Sect.  5 provides a discussion of the findings. The last section presents the conclusions obtained.

2 Theoretical framework

There is a significant and growing interest in the connection between tourism and the environment within the analysis of the literature and empirical evidence, which suggests that this relationship can be studied from two relevant aspects. The first aspect explores the causal relationship of tourism on environmental degradation. For example, Usman et al. ( 2021 ) investigate the causal link in Asian countries and find that tourism is what is influencing the region’s environmental degradation. On the other hand, Shi et al. ( 2020 ) find a two-way causal relationship in high-income economies around the world. Other research, such as that by Lee and Brahmasrene ( 2013 ) and de Vita et al. ( 2015 ) explores this connection along with electrical energy use, demonstrating the beneficial impact of tourism on environmental degradation; while Zaman et al. ( 2016 ) determine an inverse relationship between the variables considered for an analysis in three regions of the world. According to Lv and Xu ( 2023 ), tourism always has a major detrimental impact on environmental performance, meaning that environmental deterioration will inevitably come from tourism, regardless of how developed the industry is. On the other hand, tourism will comparatively have less of an impact on environmental performance after it reaches a certain level of development.

The second aspect examines whether the EKC hypothesis caused by tourism actually exists. Kuznets ( 1955 ) investigated “the inverted U-shaped relationship between income inequality and per capita income”. Subsequently, the pioneering study by Grossman and Krueger ( 1991 ) analyzed the connection between air quality and income growth. This study provided evidence supporting the Kuznets curve. Numerous empirical studies that explored and validated the EKC hypothesis in global tourism have been conducted in recent years (Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Fethi and Senyucel 2021 ) by groups of countries (Anser et al. 2020 ; Adedoyin et al. 2021 ), in Latin America (Pablo-Romero et al. 2019 ; Ochoa-Moreno et al. 2022 ) and Europe (Arbulú et al. 2015 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ). In this same line, Ekonomou and Halkos ( 2023 ) processes regression tests of contemporary panels that consider possible structural ruptures and phenomena of cross-dependence in panel data. Empirical findings confirm the EKC hypothesis, while business tourism expenses, capital investment expenses and domestic travel and tourism consumption have a negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

In order to demonstrate the link between environmental degradation and tourism growth in many industrialized and emerging economies, Table  1 aggregates empirical studies. However, the results differ in terms of policy implications, methods and geographical location. In addition, there are limited studies in both the Latin American region (Alizadeh 2020 ; Porto and Ciaschi 2021 ; Ochoa-Moreno et al. 2022 ), as well as in the application of the ecological footprint variable as a more comprehensive indicator of environmental degradation (Kyara et al. 2022 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Elshimy and El-Aasar 2020 ; Figge et al. 2017 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Rojas-Downing et al. 2018 ).

It is significant to highlight that the above examines the EKC hypothesis using only one indicator of environmental pollution, namely carbon dioxide emissions, and is restricted to a one-dimensional consumption-based study. In this regard, Wackernagel and Rees ( 1998 ) state that environmental degradation is a multidimensional phenomenon and is represented by several indicators, not only as a result of ongoing carbon emissions, but also of the loss of fish species, reduction of grazing land and reduction of crops (Global Footprint Network 2021 ). For example, according to Ehigiamusoe et al. ( 2023 ), the ecological footprint and carbon emissions reflect various aspects of environmental degradation highlighting the imperative for nations to take into account the interaction between globalization and tourism in their effort to ensure environmental sustainability.

In addition, because the biocapacity available is ignored, it restricts our knowledge of the dynamics of environmental stresses. According to Destek and Sarkodie ( 2019 ), the biocapacity of a nation has a substantial impact on the outcome of the EKC hypothesis. In line with this, Khan et al. ( 2019 ) found decreasing forest cover has a variety of negative effects, such as droughts, unpredictable rainfall and flash floods. In order to reduce climate change and its effects, it is crucial to analyze the ecological footprint of growing economies (Destek and Sarkodie 2019 ).

On the other hand, regarding the methodology implemented in several of the studies presented in this section, the relationship between tourism and the environment is analyzed mainly based on some common econometric techniques. However, this research seeks to broaden the analysis of the relationship from convergence, alluding to the idea that over time, the per capita production of all economies will converge (Du 2017 ), adapting and expanding it to tourism and sustainability, based on the study by Simo-Kengne ( 2022 ), who builds a tourism sustainability index and analyzes the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability in 148 countries for the period from 2006 to 2016.

A number of studies (Baumol 1986 ; Bernard and Durlauf 1995 ; Barro and Sala-I-Martin 1997 ; Lee et al. 1997 ; Luginbuhl and Koopman 2004 ) have helped to establish techniques for convergence testing and to empirically investigate the convergence hypothesis in various countries and areas. Convergence analysis has recently been used to examine a variety of different topics, including the cost of living (Phillips and Sul 2007 ), carbon dioxide emissions (Panopoulou and Pantelidis 2009 ), eco-efficiency (Camarero et al. 2013 ), housing prices (Montanés and Olmos 2013), corporate taxation (Regis et al. 2015 ), etc.

Using a non-linear time-varying component model, Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) suggested a unique method (called the “log t” regression test) to evaluate the convergence hypothesis. The following are the benefits of the suggested strategy: First, it considers the diverse behavior of agents and their evolution. Second, the proposed test is robust to the stationarity property of the series, since it does not make any specific assumptions regarding trend stationarity or stochastic non-stationarity. Subsequently, Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) demonstrated certain flaws in conventional convergence tests for economic development. Due to missing variables and endogeneity problems, the Solow regression estimate enhanced under transient heterogeneity, for instance, is biased and inconsistent. Due to the fact that the presence of a unit root in the series differential does not always imply divergence, conventional cointegration tests frequently lack the sensitivity required to detect asymptotic motion.

The potential existence of convergence clubs is another recurring concern in convergence analysis. Traditional studies generally divide all participants into subgroups based on some previous knowledge (e.g., geographical region, institution), and then test the convergence hypothesis for each subgroup separately. A new algorithm was created by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) to locate subgroups of convergence in clusters. The algorithm developed is a data-based approach that does not separate samples ex ante. Some typical models are compatible with the relative transition parameter method presented by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) to characterize individual variations. To put people into groups with comparable transition paths, it can be used as a universal panel approach.

In this regard, the present research aims to fill the gaps identified in the aforementioned bibliography. Firstly, by expanding the analysis of the convergence of the relationship between tourism growth and environmental sustainability. Secondly, a proxy for environmental degradation for the Latin American and European regions using new indicators and with more comprehensive dimensions.

3 Methodology

The data used in this study were taken from the World Bank (2022) and Global Footprint Network ( 2021 ). The variables extracted are the ecological footprint (ECO), which serves as the dependent variable in this study, and the number of international arrivals (TUR), which serves as the independent variable. This study covers 32 countries (Latin America, 14 and the European Union, 18) during the period 2000–2019. With 640 observations over the 20-year period and 32 countries, the variables provide a fully balanced panel over the 20-year period (t = 1, 2, …, 20), and 32 countries (i = 1, 2, …, 32).

Within countries, measured in global hectares per person, the ecological footprint is more stable than between them. Within countries, the standard deviation (SD) is 0.33, and between countries, it is 1.47. Similarly, the within-country variation in tourist revenues (log) (TUR) is lower than between countries. In comparison to the standard deviation across countries, which is 0.58, the standard deviation within countries is 0.32 (Table  2 ).

The annual evolution on average of the ecological footprint and the arrival of international tourists for Latin American countries can be observed in Fig.  1 . The trend of the dependent variable is constant, i.e., the ecological footprint is constant over the length of the study period in the sample of Latin American countries; while the independent variable is positive, i.e., it shows a constant increase in the study period (Table  3 ).

Average ecological footprint and tourist arrivals in 14 Latin American countries

Figure  2 shows the average annual changes in the ecological footprint and the number of foreign visitors for the European Union member states. As can be seen, the independent variable has a positive trend throughout the study period and the dependent variable has a negative trend, which means that the ecological footprint in the sample of European countries has maintained an average decrease.

Average ecological footprint and tourist arrivals in 18 European Union countries

Over time you can see how Latin American countries converge in terms of sustainability and tourism growth; Meanwhile, the countries of the European Union diverge in terms of tourism and environmental sustainability, especially in the last years of the study; However, this differs depending on the macroeconomic conditions of each country; this is expanded upon in the results and discussion section once the cluster convergence method has been applied.

3.2 Methodology

The empirical research follows a four-step process in line with the research objective of examining the convergence and interaction between the ecological footprint and international tourism growth in a panel of 32 countries from 2000 to 2019. The stationarity of the variables under study is first verified as a prerequisite in the first phase. The cointegration test is used in the second phase to assess whether there is stationarity between the variables under study in the long run. The third phase consists of estimating the fictitious cointegration connection in order to describe its dynamics, including how quickly it adjusts to long-term equilibrium and the short- and long-term effects. The causality analysis that comes at the end of this process, which considers the direction of the effects and any potential externalities to the research variables, is important for the creation of policy implications. The connection between tourism and environmental impact can be expressed as follows:

If the logarithm of tourism is considered in Eq.  1 , it is formulated as follows:

The ecological footprint of country \(i\) as a whole during period \(t\) is represented by log \({(ECO)}_{i,t}\) , the logarithm of tourism during period \(t\) is represented by \(\log (TUR)_{i,t}\) , and the error term is represented by \(\varepsilon_{i,t}\) . The results at this stage are interesting because they show the direction and strength of the effect of the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

The unit root test is used to check if the series are stationary—i.e., if there is no trend effect—prior to the cointegration analysis. Levin, Lin, and Chu-LLC and Im, Pesaran, and Shin-IPS, both suggested by Levin et al. ( 2002 ) and Im et al. ( 2003 ), were the tests used. The Fisher-type test based on the ADF test (Dickey and Fuller 1981 ) and the Fisher-type test based on the PP test were also used in response to Maddala and Wu ( 1999 ), who suggested using a simpler non-parametric unit root test. This equation was used to estimate these tests:

where ∆ is the first difference operator, \({X}_{i,t}\) is the series for a member of panel (country) i during the period (i = 1, 2, … N); (t = 1, 2, … T), \({p}_{i}\) indicates the number of lags in the ADF regression, and the error term \({\varepsilon }_{i,t}\) is assumed to be independently distributed random variables and normal for all i and t mean zero and finite heterogeneous variance.

The following stage tested for long-term equilibrium between the variables under study using cointegration techniques (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ). The panel series are compared to see if there is a long-term link by using the Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) cointegration test. The panel v statistic, panel rho statistic, panel PP statistic, panel ADF statistic, and the panel statistic—group rho, group PP statistic, and group ADF statistic are all calculated using the regression of Eq. ( 3 ) in the Pedroni cointegration test (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ):

In addition, a short-term equilibrium based on error correction models (ECVM) is present (Westerlund 2007 ). The null hypothesis of no cointegration versus cointegration between the variables used is considered at the regional level. As opposed to residual dynamics, this demonstrates structural dynamics, hence there are no restrictions on any common element. On the other hand, the error correction model developed by Westerlund in 2007 is denoted by the following notation and it is assumed that all variables are integrated in order 1 or I (1):

where d t  = (1 − t) contains the deterministic components and θ t  = (1 − t) is the vector of unknown coefficients to be estimated.

As indicated by Dumitrescu and Hurlin ( 2012 ), the Granger non-causality approach was used after calculating the equilibrium connection to take into consideration panel data heterogeneity problems. In the situation of imbalanced and heterogeneous data, the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) test is a modified version of the Granger causality test that is more lenient for T < N and T > N. Equation ( 6 ) is used in the DH test:

where \({\varphi }_{i}\) is the intercept of the slope, \({\gamma }_{i}\) and \({\theta }_{i}\) are the slope coefficients, ε is the error term, and k is the number of lag lengths.

In order to investigate the presence of convergence clubs according to the Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) clustering procedure, the following steps are implemented:

(Cross section last observation ordering): Sort units in descending order according to the last panel observation of the period;

(Core group formation): Run the log-t regression for the first k units (2 < k < N) maximizing k under the condition that t-value is >−1.65. In other words, chose the core group size \({k}^{*}\) as follows:

If the condition tk > −1.65 does not hold for k = 2 (the first two units), drop the first unit and repeat the same procedure. If tk > −1.65 does not hold for any units chosen, the whole panel diverges.

The fixed-effects and random-effects models were compared using the Hausman test ( 1978 ). As a result, for each panel, the model that best fitted the test data was chosen. The modified Wald test and the Wooldridge ( 1991 ) test were also used to test for heteroscedasticity and to identify autocorrelation in the panel, highlighting the need to estimate the parameters of Eq. ( 2 ) using generalized least squares (GLS) for panel data (Wooldridge 2004 ). The results are shown for the two groups of countries (Table  4 ).

Next, the non-stationarity of the series is confirmed using unit root tests for panel data. Three tests, those of Levin et al. ( 2002 ) and Im et al. ( 2003 ), known respectively as LLC and IPS tests in the empirical literature on panel data, were applied to confirm the reliability of the findings. Comparisons were made between the results of these tests and those produced by Maddala and Wu ( 1999 ). Both with and without the effects of time were considered in the testing. According to the findings in Table  5 , the series show an order of integration (1). The existence of long-term and short-term cointegration vectors between the variables is confirmed in the following step of this research.

Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) developed the cointegration test in heterogeneous panels, which allows to merge cross-sectional dependence with various individual effects, to determine the presence of a long-term equilibrium. This analytical framework, which incorporates seven repressors based on seven residual-based statistics, enables cointegration tests to be run in both heterogeneous and homogeneous panels.

The results of the seven statistics used by Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) are shown in Table  6 . With varying degrees of significance, the majority of the statistics for each set of countries reject the null hypothesis of no cointegration. As a result, these findings suggest that throughout the years 2000–2019 in the groupings of countries, tourism and the ecological footprint have moved together and simultaneously.

In addition, the short-run equilibrium was calculated using an error correction model (ECVM) for panel data created by Westerlund ( 2007 ). If there is a short-run equilibrium, this implies that changes in tourism revenues will quickly result in changes in the ecological footprint. According to the data compiled in Table  7 , each group of countries is in short-term equilibrium.

Granger-type causality of the variables was established using the formalization created by (Dumitrescu and Hurlin 2012 ). In both country groupings, it was found that there are causal connections that stem from TUR → ECO (gha). In other words, changes in the number of visitors will have an impact on the ecological footprint on average in both European and Latin American countries. When considering the direction of the effects and their potential externalities to the research variables, these causal analyses are crucial for the creation of policy implications (see Table  8 ).

To do this, the Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) proposed convergence club technique is used, which finds three convergence clusters with the possibility of the two final clusters combining to form a single club. The convergence club hypothesis, which holds that countries moving from a point of environmental imbalance to their club-specific steady state trajectory belong to the same cluster, is where the three mega clubs in Table  9 come from.

Table 9 shows that there are three clubs and three divergent units in club 4 for Latin America. It lists the number of units (countries) covered for each club, as well as the beta coefficient of the log-t test and the value of the t-statistic. Since the t-value for clubs 1 and 2 is less than −1.65, the null hypothesis of convergence is rejected at the 5% level; however, the hypothesis is not rejected for club 3.

On the other hand, two clubs representing 9 and 4 countries, respectively, are shown for the 18 countries that make up the European Union, along with 5 divergent units in club 3. Given that the t-value in the two established clubs is less than −1.65 in this case, the null hypothesis of convergence is rejected at the 5% level.

The results in Fig.  3 a, b demonstrate graphically that the economies of Europe and Latin America are not close to reaching their stationary states. In addition, the last graph of each section (a) and b)) shows the comparison between the average transitory behavior of each club, where it can be more clearly identified that the path of the countries in both regions has a different pattern.

Transition paths within each convergence club in the 14 Latin American countries and transition paths within each convergence club in the 18 European Union countries

5 Discussion

In the previous section, the results of the estimated GLS are presented, which allowed to establish the relationship of the ecological footprint based on the logarithm of international tourist arrivals, showing a negative effect on the panel of Latin America and Europe. In other words, as tourism increases, it has a positive and significant effect on the deterioration of the ecological footprint in both regions. These results are similar to those found by authors such as Porto and Ciaschi ( 2021 ) and Arbulú et al. ( 2015 ), who by using generalized least squares verified that tourism activity causes an increase in environmental degradation, measured through carbon emissions for 18 Latin American and 32 European countries. This suggests that the non-linear impact of tourism on the environmental degradation of countries is not sustainable as tourism increases, so efforts to mitigate environmental degradation from tourism must be implemented (Simo-Kengne 2022 ).

Both the existence of short-term (Westerlund 2007 ) and long-term equilibrium (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ) have been tested using the approach. Similar methodological techniques are used by studies such as Ochoa-Moreno et al. ( 2022 ), Ghosh et al. ( 2022 ), and Saqib and Benhmad ( 2020 ) to establish equilibrium correlations in various study samples. The findings show that during the period 2000–2019, tourism growth and the ecological footprint in global hectares per capita have a combined and synchronous movement in both sets of countries. This is in line with Saqib and Benhmad’s ( 2020 ) hypothesis that the dynamics in developing countries affects how these variables are balanced. This is because the tourism industry generates significant economic advantages, while also contributing to an increase in environmental degradation. Due to the fact that these countries have not yet transitioned from traditional energy sources to more cutting-edge and environmentally friendly technology in tourism, the host country will suffer.

On the one hand, Granger’s causality (Dumitrescu and Hurlin 2012 ) showed that the ecological footprint and growth of tourism in both categories of countries had mutual causal links. In other words, the extraction and exploitation of natural resources is accelerated by the economic growth of industrialized economies, which reduces the biocapacity of the environment and increases the ecological footprint (Panayotou 1993 ). This finding is comparable to those of Destek and Asumadu ( 2018 ) and Saqib and Benhmad ( 2020 ), which found a two-way causal link. On the other hand, Ghosh et al. ( 2022 ) find a two-way causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, tourism and ecological footprint in the G-7 countries. Ozturk et al. ( 2023 ) who use a unique technique through quantum-in-quantum regression and Granger causality and suggest a combination of positive and negative effects of tourist arrivals and CO 2 emissions at most tourist destinations. Moreover, Ekonomou and Halkos ( 2023 ) by applying Granger’s non-causality tests to a eurozone data panel suggest that all Granger variables cause greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the convergence analysis in both regions indicates that the sample of countries selected for this study do not have convergence in environmental terms, i.e., they do not converge towards the stationary point of each convergence club created from the Phillips cluster procedure (Philips and Sul 2007 , 2009 ). These findings contrast with those made by Simo-Kengne ( 2022 ) for a sample of 148 countries, who found that the convergence of tourism growth and environmental well-being tends to adjust at varying rates depending on the sample panels. Similarly, research by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) found that the relative cost of living in the 19 major American metropolises does not appear to converge over time, in addition to providing a new mechanism to model and analyze the behavior of the economic transition in the presence of common growth characteristics.

6 Conclusions and political implications

The environment is a resource and an opportunity, as well as a constraint for tourism. As a result, while engaging in tourism activities might help the environment to remain sustainable, it can also worsen its condition. The overall impact depends on the nature of tourism, as well as on contextual factors like the development of technology, the level of environmental awareness, and society’s lifestyle (Pigram 1980). Thus, the aim of the study is to investigate the connection between tourism growth and the ecological footprint in 14 Latin American and 18 European countries. To find the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability, the annual period between 2000 and 2019 is examined using panel cointegration techniques and the clustering procedure.

The study findings support the notion that tourism development and environmental sustainability are mutually exclusive, since increasing biocapacity has a detrimental impact on environmental sustainability. Similarly, Danish et al. ( 2019 ), Adedoyin et al. ( 2021 ), and Chu et al. ( 2017 ), all reach the conclusion that decreasing biocapacity in Beijing, Tianjin, and Heibin is what leads to ecological improvement. These studies support the finding of Danish et al. In addition, increased tourism-related activities, globalization and economic production can all have a negative impact on the environment, as demonstrated by the research of Nathaniel ( 2021 c), who found that as tourism grows, so does energy consumption, which in turn causes the release of toxic chemicals that degrade the quality of the environment.

The current study adds important elements to the analysis of the literature on the growth of tourism and the impact on the environment, making important methodological contributions by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of sustainability, as well as the convergence club method presented by Phillips and Su ( 2007 ) to determine the convergence of tourist and environmental sustainability. However, some theoretical limitations have been presented, such as the lack of information for all countries in the Latin American region and the European Union; and empirical, there are limited studies examining the relationship or impact of tourism growth and ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental sustainability.

From the political point of view, it is imperative that nations take decisions and do things to achieve environmental sustainability. There are two ways to fulfill this commitment, which will ensure a smaller ecological footprint and a cleaner environment. First, it is suggested that governments and organizations adopt green tourism, which can reduce soil erosion and air pollution caused by various forms of tourism-related transportation. Second, in order to fulfill environmental preservation and economic development objectives, sustainable economic production is preferable in order to limit environmentally damaging emissions (Alola et al. 2019a , 2019b ; Nathaniel et al. 2021 ). These findings suggest that policymakers should implement financial changes aimed at sustainable development, as well as assist tourism initiatives that use renewable energy sources. Furthermore, the findings suggest that these countries economic growth goals should be combined with carbon dioxide emission legislation (Koengkan et al. 2019 ).

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

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Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This publication was funded by the Consejería de Economía, Ciencia y Agenda Digital de la Junta de Extremadura and by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union through the reference grant GR21161.

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Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Loja, Ecuador

Viviana Torres-Díaz

Programa de Doutoramento en Análise Económica e Estratexia Empresarial, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Vigo, University Campus, s/n, 36310, Vigo, Spain

Business Management and Marketing Department, Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism, University of Vigo, As Lagoas S/n, 32004, Ourense, Spain

María de la Cruz del Río-Rama

Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad, Instituto Universitario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Territorial Sostenible (INTERRA), 10071, Caceres, Spain

José Álvarez-García

University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy

Biagio Simonetti

WSB University in Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland

National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Naples, Italy

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Conceptualization, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S.; Formal analysis, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S.; Investigation, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S.; Methodology, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S.; Writing—original draft, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S.; Writing—review and editing, V.T-D, M.C.R-R, J.Á.-G. and B.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to María de la Cruz del Río-Rama .

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See Figs. 4 and 5 .

Average transition path in the 14 Latin American countries

Average transition path in the 18 European Union countries

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Torres-Díaz, V., del Río-Rama, M.d.l.C., Álvarez-García, J. et al. Environmental sustainability and tourism growth: convergence or compensation?. Qual Quant (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-024-01906-w

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Published : 29 May 2024

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Edthena Names Winners of the 2024 Teacher Leader Impact Award

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Jun 06, 2024, 07:00 ET

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Alyssa Dillard of the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township in Indianapolis, Ind. and Noemi Jimenez of St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colo. are recognized recognized for their dedication to lifelong learning with the 2024 Teacher Leader Impact Award from Edthena.

SAN FRANCISCO , June 6, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Edthena is announcing Alyssa Dillard of the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township in Indianapolis, Ind. and Noemi Jimenez of St. Vrain Valley Schools in Longmont, Colo. as the winners of its 2024 Teacher Leader Impact Award . Nominated by administrators at their respective school districts, Dillard and Jimenez were chosen for their positive impact on their classroom and school community through their dedication to lifelong learning and the continuous improvement of their teaching practices.

"I am honored to receive the Teacher Leader Impact Award," said Dillard, a reading interventionist at Creston Intermediate and Middle School in the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township . "I strive to be a leader in both words and actions in every position I hold and I hope I can continue to impact people and bring a positive light to my job every day."

"This tremendous honor wouldn't be possible without the unwavering support of my team, families, colleagues, students, and coaches," added Jimenez, a kindergarten biliteracy teacher at Northridge Elementary in St. Vrain Valley Schools. "Together, we've cultivated a vibrant learning environment that fosters curiosity and empowers multilingual learners to not only thrive but also explore the wonders of STEM. Thank you all for believing in the power of growth!"

During the nomination process, an instructional coach at the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township described Dillard as "a dedicated educator with an insatiable drive for professional growth." Similarly, a learning coach at St. Vrain Valley Schools described how Jimenez "eagerly participates in various professional development activities" and "enthusiastically incorporates newly-acquired knowledge into her classroom practice, embodying a dedication to her students' success."

To further support these educators with their ongoing professional growth, each winner will receive a school-wide subscription to the AI Coach by Edthena platform for the 2024-25 school year. This adaptive, first-of-its-kind solution uses artificial intelligence (AI) to support teachers as they work through personalized coaching cycles. Using the platform, teachers independently reflect on their practice and set near-term goals as part of a self-paced module that mirrors the instructional coaching process to further their professional development.

"As evident by their work in and out of the classroom, Alyssa and Noemi are truly standout teachers," said Adam Geller , founder and CEO of Edthena. "Their dedication, commitment, and willingness to go above and beyond—both to support their students and their own professional growth—does not go unnoticed."

This is the fourth year of the Teacher Leader Impact Awards. Dillard and Jimenez join fellow educators from across the country in receiving this honor.

To learn more about the Teacher Leader Impact Awards and this year's winners, visit https://teacherleaderimpact.org/ .

About Edthena

Edthena is the leading provider of innovative technologies to support educator professional learning and streamline feedback to teachers. The company offers the AI Coach platform, an artificial intelligence-driven solution to guide teachers through coaching cycles; the Edthena Video Coaching platform, the classroom observation and collaboration platform for using videos as part of professional development; and Edthena Organization Libraries, a platform for schools and districts to curate and share best-practice teaching videos. Edthena is the recipient of numerous awards from organizations such as SIIA, District Administration, and Tech & Learning. For more information, visit www.edthena.com . For more news about Edthena, visit www.edthena.com/blog/ .

Media Contact Christine Lynch , Edthena, 1 410-975-9638, [email protected] , www.edthena.com

SOURCE Edthena

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