| Transportation is the foundation of the tourism industry, yet, transportation accounts for a significant amount of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by the tourism industry. Among the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is the main contributor to global warming. Implementing environmentally friendly regional transportation is essential to promote the sustainability of tourism. Scientific designed, low-carbon emission and green transportation represent great opportunities and challenges to tourism. Thus, the analysis of carbon dioxide emissions by tourism transportation presents an urgent theoretical and practical problem.Carbon dioxide emissions by regional tourism transportation include two components:a tourism part and a non-tourism part. The key and difficult step of this research is how to separate the tourism emission part from the total carbon dioxide emissions of regional tourism transportation. From a top-down perspective, this study constructed a model to estimate the carbon dioxide emissions of regional tourism transportation, and made an empirical comparison between Nanjing and Huangshan cities, with the former city containing more economic and tourism development than the latter.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:First, regional economic and tourist development levels represent important factors that influence the carbon dioxide emissions of tourism transportation. The sizes and orientations of the contribution of regional economic and tourist development levels differed. The carbon dioxide emissions from tourism transportation in Nanjing were 9.72×105t and 1.33×105t in Huangshan during 2012. In parallel, regional economic and tourism influenced carbon dioxide emissions from tourism transportation, which were related to the regional development level. The elasticity coefficient of the economy to carbon dioxide emissions from regional tourism transportation in Nanjing was greater than that of tourism. In contrast, the opposite trend was documented in Huangshan, with an elasticity coefficient of more than 1. The average per capita carbon dioxide emissions of tourism transportation in Nanjing and Huangshan were 10.09 kg and 3.31 kg from 2009 to 2012.Second, the carbon dioxide emissions of regional tourism transportation had a significant effect on the inter-region, where most carbon dioxide emissions occurred. From 2008 to 2012, an annual average of 89.13% and 90.21% carbon dioxide emissions by tourism transportation occurred in the inter-region of Nanjing and Huangshan, respectively.Third, in the structure of tourist carbon dioxide emissions by different types of regional transport modes, the civil aviation, highway, and railway had the greatest quantity of emissions, while tourism carbon dioxide emissions by different types of regional transport modes increased to differing degrees. To optimize the structure of regional tourism transportation, it is better to cut down carbon dioxide emissions from regional tourism transportation. Statistical analysis showed that the diversity index of tourism carbon dioxide emissions from regional types of transport modes were higher in Nanjing compared to Huangshan. Yet, the composite carbon emissions indexes were the opposite.Forth, in all types of regional transport modes, external transportation contributed more to tourism than internal transportation. When taking the railway and civil aviation as examples, these two transport modes contributed 30% and 40%, respectively, in Nanjing and over 60% and 80%, respectively, in Huangshan. However, there were also differences among regions and periods.The government should take policy effectively to adjust and improve the allocation of city transportation to reduce tourism carbon dioxide emissions of transportation. The society, economy, and tourism would be much more sustainable by implementing special planning for city transportation and designing special tour lines for urban traffic. |
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