The role of tourism, energy consumption, urbanization, and economic growth on ecological footprint: The Turkish case

Authors : Gülden BÖLÜK, Murat GÜVEN

Pages : 440-449

Doi:10.31590/ejosat.1030941

View : 32 | Download : 11

Publication Date : 2022-08-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The current paper aims to examine the impacts of tourism, energy consumption, urbanization, and economic growth on the environmental quality in Turkey for the from 1963 to 2016. Apart from the previous empirical EKC studies, we tested the validity of the tourism-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis by using a more comprehensive ecological quality indicator named Ecological Footprint. For this purpose, we employ FMOLS and DOLS estimators to estimate our model and CCR estimator to check the robustness of the FMOLS and DOLS estimation results. Moreover, we use the VECM approach to detect the causality between variables. Our results reveal that tourism induced EKC is not confirmed for Turkey however results confirm the tourism-led growth for Turkey. Empirical results also show that energy usage, urbanization, and international tourism arrival lead to environmental degradation in Turkey. Hence, the Turkish government should design a more efficient policy that accelerates the transition to renewable energy in the economy, including the tourism sector. Moreover, Turkey needs to benefit from the advantages of circular economy and smart tourism in the country.
Keywords : Tourism induced EKC, ecological footprint, sustainable tourism, urbanization, time series analysis