Environment, Innovation and Tourism: Challenges for Sustainability in Europe

The aim of this chapter is to verify whether innovation in tourism contributes to the reduction of pollution in search for an environmentally friendly role played by the sector. We analyse the connection between the degradation of the environment, given by carbon intensity per GDP, and an innovative measure of innovation in tourism through a dynamic panel estimation technique on 15 European countries from 2005 to 2019. In particular, we use a pooled mean group estimator (PMG) which investigates the existence of a long-run stable relationship among the variables even in the presence of different dynamics in each country. The analysis shows a steady beneficial effect of tourism innovation on CO2 emissions, revealing a positive contribution of innovation to the reduction of pollution and a role of tourism as an environmentally friendly activity. Detrimental effects—however—might derive from an increasing pressure when tourism approaches a critical threshold.