Tourism and regional carbon emissions: city-level evidence from China

Purpose Although extensive studies have examined the link between tourism and carbon emissions, the impact of tourism on carbon emissions remains controversial. In contrast to prior studies, this study aims to investigate the effects of tourism on carbon emissions at the city level and the underlying moderating mechanism. Design/methodology/approach This study designs an econometric model drawing on panel data for 313 city-level regions in China from 2001 to 2019. This study also performs rigorous robustness tests to support the regression results. In addition, the temporal and spatial heterogeneity is analyzed based on which this study discusses the moderators of the effects of tourism on carbon emissions. Findings The results show that both tourist arrivals and tourism revenue significantly impact carbon emissions. Also, there exists a significant temporal and spatial heterogeneity of these effects. Economic development significantly enhances while green technology and tertiary industry development suppress the positive relationship between tourism and carbon emissions. Moreover, regarding the impact on carbon emissions, an explicit substitution exists between tourism and tertiary industry development. Originality/value For the first time, this study quantitatively estimates the moderators of tourism’s impact on carbon emissions and concludes the moderating effects of economic growth, technological progress and industrial structure, thus furthering the theoretical understanding of the heterogeneity of tourism’s association with carbon emissions. The study also fills a technical gap in previous studies by demonstrating the reliability of the findings through various robustness tests. This is also the first empirical study to systematically examine the relationship between tourism and carbon emissions in China.