Does tourism development promote ecological footprint? A nonlinear ARDL approach

In this empirical study, we explore the nonlinear (asymmetric) correspondence between tourism development and the ecological footprint of most visited countries by employing the recently introduced panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach spanning the period 1995–2017. Empirical findings affirm the significant and long-run positive impact of tourism arrivals on ecological footprint, while tourism receipts are negatively associated with environmental degradation. Results also indicate that economic growth, energy intensity, and urbanization degrade environmental quality in the long run. These empirical findings are expected to direct the government to implement appropriate tourism arrivals-related policies to promote sustainable tourism development in the most visited countries.