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

Abstract

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.