Abstract:

Carbon dioxide emissions of tourism, as an important study issue in tourism industry in the 21st century, is a vital index reflecting its effects on environment change. It is difficult to measure the emissions of regional tourism. The article, taking Jiangsu province as a case, based on the input-output tables and tourism expenditures of 1997, 2002 and 2007, makes an analysis of the direct emissions and indirect emissions of tourism from food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment and postal services, and then explores the mechanism of influencing factors by Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index. The results are as follows: The total emissions of tourism industry in Jiangsu province in 1997, 2002 and 2007 were 22.57267 Mt, 33.90042 Mt and 62.43800 Mt, respectively, and the annual rate of growth was 10.71%. The indirect emissions account for about 73% of the total emissions. These percentages of food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment of total emissions in Jiangsu province are comparatively balanced, which, to some extent, reflects the character that the percentage of emissions from tourism sightseeing in China is higher than that of global level and national levels. The total emissions of domestic tourists are evidently higher than those of inbound tourists; however, the per-trip emissions of the inbound tourists are 4-7 times more than those of domestic tourists. There are significant differences of total emissions and per capita emissions among the cities within the province. Among the five factors affecting emissions of tourism industry, the increase of industry size and expenditure size are generally found to be principal drivers of emission growth, whereas the main factors restricting emissions are the decrease of energy intensity and the change of energy share. In addition, the effect of consumption structure shows fluctuation in different stages. These results imply the emission reduction of tourism industry not only needs the share responsibility from all tourism sectors but also strongly relies on the cooperation with related industries, which offer the intermediate goods for the consuming of tourism. Domestic tourists are the main carbon source, but still require more emission space due to low per capita emissions. The cities with higher per capita emissions should bear more obligation of emission reduction. Finally, it should be the main direction of emission reduction to reduce energy use intensity and develop low-carbon tourism behavior.

Key words: carbon dioxide emissions of tourism, factor decomposition, input-output, LMDI, Jiangsu province