Evaluation of the Impact of Tourism Development on Environmental Degradation in Turkey

The tourism industry has become a strategic sector with its direct and indirect contribution to employment and economic growth. Environmental degradation has become a global problem that is increasing all over the world and its costs are growing exponentially for every country. Increasing tourism activities cause some environmental problems. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of tourism development on the ecological footprint, carbon dioxide emissions and therefore environmental degradation between the years 1995-2017 in Turkey. This effect was analyzed using FMOLS (Fully Modified Least Squares) and DOLS (Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares) methods by establishing two different models. Empirical findings show that there is a long-term relationship between tourism and environmental degradation in Turkey. In both models, it has been determined that energy consumption, increase in the number of tourists and economic growth increase environmental degradation. However, the relationship between ecological footprint and tourism was not significant. Policymakers should be more careful about protective environmental policies to ensure sustainable tourism development.