Balancing Tourism’s Economic Benefit and CO₂ Emissions: An Insight from Input–Output and Tourism Satellite Account Analysis

• Main Authors: Ling Li, Jingjing Li, Ling Tang, Shouyang Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-02-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: tourism; CO₂ emissions; input–output (IO); tourism satellite account (TSA); Beijing
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1052

To balance tourism’s economic benefit and environmental pollution, this paper proposes an analytical approach by using the input⁻output (IO) model and tourism satellite accounts (TSA). Four steps are taken: (1) the setting of system boundaries according to the combined IO and TSA database; (2) economic benefit estimation for tourism income, sectoral multipliers and inter-sector linkages; (3) environmental pollution estimation of direct and indirect CO₂ emissions; and (4) a policy analysis to balance the economic benefit and CO₂ emissions (in terms of reducing the CO₂ emissions intensity) in tourism-related sectors. In the case of Beijing, some interesting insights can be obtained. Beijing’s tourism sectors experienced a fast economic growth and a clear decrease in CO₂ emissions during 2007⁻2012, with the former having a greater absolute change rate (particularly for the shopping and sightseeing sectors). In all tourism sectors (except for transportation), the indirect CO₂ emissions were over three times greater than the direct CO₂ emissions. Transportation was a leading contributor to both the economic benefit (representing 91.65% of tourism income in 2012) and to environmental pollution (representing 38.75% of tourism-related CO₂ emissions). The detailed findings regarding the industrial and energy structures offer insightful policies for a high-benefit and low-emissions development of tourism.