| Tourism has shown a remarkable scale and significant development potential during the economic and social growth.Although the global tourism industry has been hit hard by the negative impacts of COVID-19 epidemic since the beginning of the outbreak in 2020,it is a leading industry with high potential to stimulate the domestic and international economic growth in the post-COVID-19 era due to its rapid recovery ability.In the coming“14th Five-Year Plan”period,China will focus on clothing,food,housing,transportation,and travel as the key areas for promoting green consumption,and tourism is undoubtedly the embodiment of these aspects.Previous studies on the environmental impacts of tourism generally focused on the local environment,including the impacts of unplanned and overexploited tourism resources on the local ecological environment and resource carrying capacity.However,from the perspective of supply chain and industrial linkage,the indirect impacts of tourism on non-local environmental are still lacking.Although tourism is an immaterial production sector,its related driving function is very strong.It can not only stimulate the development of the tertiary industry,but also promote the development of the material production sectors.In addition,tourism promotes local economy development through the supply chain effect and drive the economic development of other regions.These development will have a more important and far-reaching influences on the resources and environment.Based on the top-down and whole life cycle resources footprint concept,this study applied tourism satellite account and environment extended input-output analysis method to evaluate the two most important resources that greatly affect the environment sustainable development—water and energy.This study examines normal and abnormal circumstances of China’s tourism industry.First,the relationship between the national and provincial tourism economic development and tourism water and energy footprint under normal circumstances.The second is the impacts of COVID-19 on China’s tourism economy and tourism water and energy footprint under abnormal circumstances.Under normal circumstances,the results of this study show that China’s tourism energy footprint increased by 61%from 2012 to 2015,which was about double the 37%increase in tourism water footprint.At the same time,the number of tourists and tourism income increased by 34%and 60%,respectively.For the period of 2015 to 2017,the tourism energy footprint grew more slowly with only 5%increased.Also,the tourism water footprint decreased by 13%,while the number of tourists and tourism revenue increased by 24%and 29%.Before 2015,the growth rate of China’s tourism water and energy footprint were almost kept pace with the growth rate of tourism industry.After2015,the growth rate of tourism is still rising but at a slower rate than before.However,the tourism water footprint began to drop significantly,while the tourism energy footprint had an insignificant growth rate.It implies that not only tourism industry itself,but also other industries associated with tourism adopt water-saving and energy-saving technologies.The utilization of unconventional water resources and new energy in China has alleviated the pressure on resources and environment caused by the growth of tourism scale.We also found that the improvement of water use efficiency is higher than the improvement of energy use efficiency.Improving energy use efficiency is therefore a key aspect that needs to be strengthened in the future.Moreover,our research results reveal that China’s average daily tourism water use per domestic and inbound tourist were around 1,600 L/tourist/day and 6,000 L/tourist/day,respectively.The daily water consumption per tourist per day estimated by various researchers ranged from 200 to 12,000 L/tourist/day.Thus,our results are not significantly different from other results.From the regional point of view,China’s eastern coastal region has the largest tourism scale.Its indirect water footprint is mainly contributed to the water shortage area in Northwest China.Therefore,due to the supply of tourism consumption in the East,the water consumption in Northwest is increased.Such spatial tourism water footprint mismatch intensifies the pressure of water resources in the western region.North China is the largest indirect tourism energy footprint supplier for the eastern China.Different from the spatial distribution of water resources,North China is the main production region of coal-based fossil energy.Such spatial matching of energy resources is better than that of water resources.In addition,this study adopts the concept and theory of the Gini coefficient which commonly used in economics to explore the relationship between resource consumption and tourism income.The results show that the rapid development of tourism intensifies the imbalance between regional resource consumption and tourism income.Also,the analysis results of two types of driving factors decomposition reveal that the number of tourists has a significant impact on the positive increment of tourism water and energy footprint.To further investigate the impact of more sectors on the tourism industry,a quantitative study was conducted on the water-energy-food nexus of the tourism industry.The results show that the water-energy-food supply sectors contribute a total tourism water footprint of around 15 billion m~3 and tourism energy footprint of 50million tce to support China’s tourism industry.The driving factors decomposition analysis results show that the growth of China’s tourism water and energy consumption is mainly driven by the growth of total tourism consumption,that is,scale effect.By improving the efficiency of water and energy utilization and adjusting the economic production structure of the tourism food supply sectors,the growth of tourism water and energy footprint can be slowed down effectively.The largest tourism water footprint contributor is indirect water use from the food related supply sectors(65%),and the largest proportion of tourism energy footprint is direct energy use from 11 direct tourism sectors(63%),especially the air transportation sector.As a result,the food supply and air transportation sectors play a crucial role in water-energy-food nexus of tourism industry,and are the key sectors required high priority to be controlled and managed.Therefore,in the future,attention should be focused on the improving water and energy use efficiency in these sectors,establishing a green and low-carbon tourism industry and promoting its sustainable development.In this study,the impact of COVID-19 on China’s tourism industry was evaluated by using the environment extended input-output method under the perspective of abnormal circumstances.The results reveal that China encountered a direct tourism consumption loss of 424 billion US$in 2020.Yet,the even greater tourism output loss of 921 billion US$,which accounted for 7%of China’s GDP in 2019,was triggered by the supply chain effect.The Southeastern coastal provinces such as Guangdong,Jiangsu and Zhejiang have suffered the greatest tourism output loss.However,such directly and indirectly economic loss could reduce water consumption by 10.4 billion m~3 and energy consumption by 116.7 million tce,accounting for 1.7%and 2.4%of China’s total national water and energy consumption in 2019,respectively.We can find that compared with 7%economic loss,the environmental gains of tourism resources conservation is less than the impact of economic loss caused by COVID-19.This is mainly because compared with other sectors of the national economy,tourism is still a green industry with high economic added value and low depletion of resources and environment.In addition,it is found that the regions with large tourism economic losses are not completely consistent with the regions with significant relief of water and energy pressures.For example,water pressure in Xinjiang(Northwest)and energy pressure in Hainan(South)have been alleviated due to reduced tourism consumption along the Southeast coast.These knock-on effects highlight a deeper internal link between the economy and the environment.While the COVID-19 outbreak has had a huge impact on tourism,it has not been enough to change people’s consumption behaviors on resources and the environment.If we try to return to a normal life,its positive effect on resources and the environment may quickly disappear and even lead to"retaliatory consumption".The development of tourism in the post-COVID-19 era needs to reduce the direct water footprint and energy footprint of local area,that is,improve the infrastructure of hotels,scenic spots,transportation stations and other related tourism facilities by applying advanced water-saving and energy-saving technologies and utilizing unconventional water resources and clean energy.Moreover,we should pay more attention to the indirect impact of external resources and the environment,and establish a green supply chain to improve the resources utilization efficiency for the entire tourism industry.Tourism is consisted of multiple sectors of the tertiary industry.Coordinating and managing these multiple sectors at the same time is very complex.It often requires to make decision from the social,economic and environmental perspectives and uses interdisciplinary evaluation system by various sectors and regions to complete the task.According to the research results,this study provides several policy suggestions for the sustainable development of China’s tourism industry.The first policy suggestion is to build a green tourism supply chain system.By stimulating downstream green purchasing,it would indirectly promote the suppliers of upstream supply chain to adopt the water and energy saving measures.Moreover,the product design,material selection,manufacturing process,logistics,recycling and final disposal in the supply chain will all be forced to be conducted in a green reform approach.In addition,in order to minimize the negative impact on resources and environment,great care should be taken in selecting products from areas where water and energy scarce regions or providing ecological compensation to these regions.The second policy suggestion is to actively develop the low-carbon and green certification system for green tourism enterprises by establishing the indicators and standards for total water and energy consumption.Guide and encourage hotels,restaurants and other tourism-related enterprises to adopt effective energy and water-saving equipment and advanced management practices to improve the original devices with high water and energy consumption.At the same time,by promoting and providing economic incentives,tourists are encouraged to give priority to select the certified low carbon and green tourism facilities such as scenic park,hotel and restaurant.Additionally,it is suggested that the government takes economic strategies to provide financial subsidies or tax compensation to certified green tourism enterprises,and promote advanced water-saving and energy saving technologies and management systems in the tourism industry especially for the hotels and restaurants.Moreover,it should actively implement the worldwide advanced Water-saving Management Contract and Energy Performance Contracting as the market-driven measures to solve the budget issues of water and energy saving required by tourism industry.For demonstration purpose,the qualified scenic parks and hotels can be selected to sign contract with water-saving and energy-saving service companies,to update and renovate their water and energy saving facilities by adopting water and energy contract management approach.In summary,as the huge impact of COVID-19 on tourism,we should turn this crisis into an opportunity.In the post-epidemic era,we will establish a green tourism industry that is environment-friendly,resource-efficient and low-carbon.In the meantime,through the tourism activities,people can experience the natural landscape and ecological diversity.In the end,to stimulate the will of human beings to strengthen the protection of the ecological environment,and further change the consumption pattern of tourist.Let tourism be the leading industry to create a green consumption pattern and a rather cutting-edge resource saving lifestyle. |
