How to improve tourism energy efficiency to achieve sustainable tourism: evidence from China

ABSTRACTThis study constructs the biennial Malmquist index, including undesirable outputs, to evaluate tourism energy efficiency and decompose its changes using a sample of 30 provinces in China over the period of 9 years from 2005 to 2013. The changes in tourism energy efficiency can be attributed to five factors, including total factor productivity, capital-energy ratio, labour-energy ratio, energy supply composition and output composition. The study results show that the energy efficiency of the tourism industry is much lower than that of the industry as a whole and not greener. Total factor productivity is a key positive driving force to boost tourism energy efficiency. Capital-labour ratio gradually overtook the total factor productivity as the tourism energy efficiency change’s largest contribution since 2010 and thus became the biggest inhibitor for increasing tourism energy efficiency. The rational utilization of capital and new capital investment should accompany energy-saving technology and is e...