IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v33y2025i3p3525-3553.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identifying Critical Paths and Drivers of Carbon Emissions From Tourism: An Integrated Analysis Toward Sustainable Tourism

Author

Listed:
  • Ting Tan
  • Zihan Chen
  • Rong Ma
  • Lamei He
  • Jianping Zha

Abstract

Given the highly fragmented structure and strong industrial linkages of the tourism industry, exploring the flow and drivers of carbon transfer is critical for sustainable tourism. This study combines the environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) model with structural decomposition analysis (SDA) and structural path analysis (SPA) to identify the key sectors, paths, and drivers of carbon emissions from tourism. Taking China as a case, the results show that: (1) China's tourism carbon emissions grew from 34.68 Mt. in 2002 to 137.87 Mt. in 2019, with road transport (22.58%), food and beverage services (21.10%), shopping (20.52%), and air transport (14.91%) constituting the primary emitters. (2) Critical supply chain path “source sector → tourism‐related sectors → final demand” spurring carbon growth of tourism primarily centers on the tourism‐related sectors associated with road transport, air transport, food and beverage services, and shopping, where the source sectors mainly come from energy and food supply, manufacturing, transportation, and logistics sectors. (3) Despite considerable sectoral and path‐level heterogeneity, the key driver for inhibiting tourism carbon emissions is direct energy intensity, while final demand remains the main obstacle to low‐carbon tourism. In addition to the limited effect of energy restructuring, the promising role of optimizing the supply of intermediate goods in cubing tourism carbon emissions is revealed. Finally, relevant theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ting Tan & Zihan Chen & Rong Ma & Lamei He & Jianping Zha, 2025. "Identifying Critical Paths and Drivers of Carbon Emissions From Tourism: An Integrated Analysis Toward Sustainable Tourism," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 3525-3553, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:3:p:3525-3553
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.3286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3286
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.3286?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:3:p:3525-3553. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.