Factors that Influence the Tourism Industry's Carbon Emissions: a Tourism Area Life Cycle Model Perspective

This study proposed a factor decomposition model for analyzing carbon emissions in energy consumption of the tourism industry from the perspective of tourism area life cycle. The Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area (WSHIA) was chosen as the study area for the analysis of the influencing factors on carbon emissions for the tourism industry over the different stages of its life cycle. The research results showed that growth in the scale of tourists and the scale of tourism output both result in the rapid growth of carbon emissions; the constant decrease in energy intensity helped inhibit carbon emissions from the stage of exploration to the stage of consolidation. However, the scale effects of tourists and the energy intensity had become the important positive factors to the growth of carbon emission, while the effects of energy structure and output scale on the growth of carbon emission had become negative factors. The inhibition of the growth of carbon emissions from optimizing the industrial structure was rapidly weakening at the stage of transformation and upgrading. Designers of policy on energy-saving and emission-reduction should focus on the differential measures, according to different influencing factors that affect carbon emissions at different life cycle stages. - Highlights: • The paper examines the influencing factors on carbon emissions of the tourism industry. • A case study of China is used to demonstrate the factor decomposition model. • Carbon emissions changes are largely attributed to the scale of tourists and energy intensity. • Findings shed light on the theoretical framework and practical development of low carbon tourism.