Environmental sustainability and tourism growth: convergence or compensation?

In addition to the socio-economic advantages, tourism has been proven to be one of the most important sectors with adverse environmental effects. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between tourism and environmental sustainability by using a panel data from 32 countries in Latin America and the European Union for the period 2000–2019. Several techniques of cointegration and convergence of clusters are used to meet this objective. The empirical results show that on average, tourism growth has a negative impact on the environment in the two groups of countries, which could be attributed to the heterogeneity of the level of regional tourism development. On the other hand, the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability is evident at different adjustment speeds in the different sample panels. It generates empirical evidence on whether the current expansion of the tourism sector in Latin American and European countries entails significant environmental externalities by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of environmental sustainability and foreign tourist arrivals as an economic indicator.