Investigating the Tourism Originating CO2 Emissions in Top 10 Tourism-Induced Countries: Evidence from Tourism Index

Because of the structural change in the economy, it is observed that the emphasis on the service sector brings along some problems. The link between the tourism sector and environmental pollution has started to draw attention to the issues in recent years, and it reveals the need for policy-makers to take measures to prevent environmental pollution. For this purpose, the impact of economic growth, tourism index, urbanization, and energy intensity on environmental pollution has been investigated for selected 10 countries with the international tourism revenue during 1995–2014 using first-generation panel data (MG) estimator, second-generation panel data (CCE-MG) estimator, and heterogeneous panel causality test. According to the empirical analysis, individual results indicate that the impact of tourism on environmental pollution differs in each country. While tourism increases environmental pollution in Germany, France, and Italy, where the tourism sector is the most developed, there is not any environmental pollution increasing effect in the US and Australia. In addition, according to the CCE-MG panel results, tourism, energy intensity, and per capita income increase environmental pollution.