Evaluation of the Economic, Environmental, and Social Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Japanese Tourism Industry

• Main Authors: Yusuke Kitamura, Selim Karkour, Yuki Ichisugi, Norihiro Itsubo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: life cycle assessment (LCA); carbon footprint (CFP); economic, environmental, and social analysis; sustainable tourism; coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10302

According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) annual Emissions Gap Report 2019, further reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are needed to reduce climate change impacts. In Japan, the 2030 Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) target is an emissions reduction of 26% compared to 2013. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has led to 43,341,451 confirmed cases and 1,157,509 confirmed deaths globally and affected 218 countries (as of 27 October 2020). In Japan, as of the same date, 96,948 infectious cases and 1724 deaths related to the new coronavirus had been recorded. These numbers continue to increase. In Japan, in March 2020, the number of international tourist arrivals decreased by about 93% compared to last year at the same period. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported several significant scenarios for the tourism industry. COVID-19 is the greatest shock to international tourism since 1950 and represents an abrupt end to the 10-year period of sustained growth that followed the 2009 financial crisis. It was thought that it would be possible to analyze the economic, environmental, and social impacts of rapid social changes. Thus, this study estimates changes in Japan’s tourist consumption, the carbon footprint (CFP), and employment due to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The calculations in this study adopt a lifecycle approach using input–output tables. Based on these observations, this study uses four scenarios (SR 1, no recovery until December; SR 2, recovery from October; SR 3, recovery from July or September; and SR 0, same growth rate as 2018–2019) for Japan to calculate the CFP and employment change using input–output table analysis based on tourist consumption, which is a tourism metric. According to our results (2019 vs. SR 1 and 3), the consumption loss is between 20,540 billion yen (65.1%) and 12,704 billion yen (39.1%), the CFP reduction is between 89,488 Mt-CO₂eq (64.2%) and 54,030 Mt-CO₂eq (37.5%), and the employment loss is between 2,677,000 people (64.2%) and 1,678,000 people (37.5%). As of November 2020, the tourism industry continues to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the post-COVID-19 society, it will be necessary to maintain the GHG emissions reductions achieved in this short period and realize economic recovery. This recovery must also be sustainable for tourism stakeholders and society.