Environmental Externalities in the Tourism Sector through COVID-19

Authors

  • Ann-Katrin Voit FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management, Leimkugelstraße 6, 45141 Essen, Germany. E-mail: ann- katrin.voit@fom.de
  • Imke Rhoden Institute of Energy and Climate Research – Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation (IEK-STE), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. E-mail: i.rhoden@fz-juelich.de 3; Center for Environmental Management, Resources and Energy (CURE), Faculty of Economics, Ruhr-Universität, 44801 Bochum, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9533-0536

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54055/ejtr.v36i.2646

Keywords:

Environmental Externalities, Tourism, COVID-19, Greenhouse Gases, CO2 Emissions, Spatiotemporal Model

Abstract

Due to the spread of COVID-19, a global pandemic has developed since December 2019, severely affecting various economic sectors, including tourism and secondary and tertiary industries. To analyse the effects of the European tourism sector on CO2 emissions, emissions are modelled together with tourism indicators. The model allows for estimating the impact of the tourism sector on greenhouse gas emissions, distinguishing them from time and space effects. The model's results suggest a positive impact of tourism arrivals and tourism-related expenditure on CO2 emissions, meaning that the decrease in tourism contributed significantly to the overall reduction of CO2 emissions. Analysing the spatial autocorrelation shows that all countries we investigated are similarly affected by a reduction in tourism, and there appears to be no regional differentiation of impacts by COVID-19. To conclude the model's results, the reduction in emissions can be partly explained by the decrease in travel, which points to the potential in this relation that could be used as leverage in conceptualising measures to reduce CO 2, targeting the tourism sector.

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Published

2024-03-01

How to Cite

Voit, A.-K., & Rhoden, I. (2024). Environmental Externalities in the Tourism Sector through COVID-19. European Journal of Tourism Research, 36, 3601. https://doi.org/10.54055/ejtr.v36i.2646