Modeling the Dynamic Linkage between Tourism Development, Technological Innovation, Urbanization and Environmental Quality: Provincial Data Analysis of China

This study investigates the linkage between tourism development, technological innovation, urbanization and environmental degradation across 30 provinces of China. Based on data from 2001 to 2018, the study used an advanced economic methodology for the long-run estimate, the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator, which accounts for heterogeneity in slope parameters and dependencies across countries. The empirical results show that tourism development degrades environmental quality, while technological innovation mitigates carbon emissions. Further, findings show that urbanization increases carbon emissions, while an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between economic growth and environmental degradation, implying the existence of EKC in China. Further, the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test shows that any policy aimed at tourism development or technological innovation would substantially contribute to environmental degradation, but not the other way round.