Do spatial spillovers matter? Estimating the impact of tourism development on CO2 emissions.

Most of the extant literature on the environmental impact of tourism has ignored the possible spatial interaction effects across countries. This study thus aims to re-investigate the impact of tourism development on CO2 emissions by taking spatial dependence into account. To that end, the spatial econometric techniques, which can address the issue of potential spatial dependence among countries, are adopted. Using a panel data of 95 countries over 2000-2014, the results confirm that there exists a significant spatial dependence among national CO2 emissions. Besides, the results provide confirmation that tourism development exerts a significant enhancing influence on CO2 emissions. Interestingly, we find that the promoting effect of tourism development on CO2 emissions primarily comes from the spillover effect rather than the direct effect, after considering spatial dependence. Finally, in light of the research findings, some policy implications are put forward to improve environmental quality.