In the rapidly evolving discourse on climate change and sustainable development, the intricate relationship between tourism and environmental stewardship has emerged as a crucial frontier. Tourism-dependent regions, often blessed with unique ecological assets but simultaneously vulnerable to environmental degradation, face mounting pressure to reconcile economic growth with carbon neutrality objectives. A groundbreaking study spearheaded by researchers Li and Tong proposes an innovative quantitative analytical framework tailored explicitly for such regions. This model offers unprecedented insights into the multifaceted dynamics governing tourism’s dual impact on carbon emissions, promising to inform more nuanced and effective climate governance strategies.
The heart of this research lies in addressing the complex interplay between tourism activities and regional carbon neutrality. Unlike prior work focused largely on broader economic or sectoral emissions, this study integrates an extended Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition with System Dynamics (SD) modeling, capturing both carbon sources and sinks. This dual focus enables a granular dissection of the components driving carbon neutrality within tourism-centric settings. The fusion of these methodological paradigms transcends conventional approaches by marrying rigorous quantitative decomposition with dynamic feedback mechanisms, illuminating the nonlinear trajectories of tourism’s environmental impacts.
Identifying the core drivers within this framework reveals startling subtleties. Traditional economic models often isolate variables such as gross tourism arrivals or revenue to gauge environmental footprint, yet the newly proposed extended-LMDI technique decomposes regional carbon neutrality into four distinct subsystems. These encompass productive emissions, residential sector impacts, land use changes, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) dynamics. By incorporating sinks alongside sources, the model dissects how tourism’s multifarious influences propagate through various subsystems, capturing trends invisible in historical factor analyses. This level of resolution allows stakeholders to target sector-specific interventions with greater precision, a vital advance in tailoring policy to geographically and economically diverse tourism landscapes.
Crucially, the adoption of causal loop diagrams within the ECON-ESG integrated framework introduces feedback analysis that charts the dynamic interrelationships governing carbon neutrality pathways. Unlike linear models that merely tally emission contributions, this system thinking approach reveals how reinforcing and balancing feedback loops influence outcomes. For instance, tourism-driven industrial upgrading can simultaneously diminish manufacturing emissions, yet paradoxically accelerate construction-driven land use changes that erode ecological carbon sinks. The study’s mechanism framework exposes these countervailing forces, shifting the academic and policy narrative beyond simplistic dichotomies towards embracing the systemic complexity characterizing tourism-environment interactions.
Most existing literature grapples with aggregate, cross-regional panel analyses, risking the erasure of critical spatial heterogeneity inherent to tourism-based economies. Factors such as institutional quality, technological capability, and developmental stages vary drastically across destinations, muddling universal conclusions about tourism’s carbon footprint. This study’s pioneering emphasis on single-region modeling circumvents these pitfalls by focusing in-depth on Hainan Island, a tourism-dependent economy with distinct socio-environmental dynamics. This localized lens allows the model to capture nuanced developmental transitions, affording actionable intelligence aligned with specific contextual realities rather than broad-brush generalizations.
Within Hainan, the fragmented carbon profile evidences tourism’s dualistic environmental role. While net carbon emissions have risen steadily, propelled by tourism-fueled economic expansion, carbon intensity concurrently declined in tandem with structural shifts toward service-oriented activities and incremental efficiency enhancements. Such decoupling signifies a promising alignment of growth and sustainability within island economies historically susceptible to climate vulnerabilities. Moreover, tourism’s unique positioning as a relatively low-carbon service sector contrasted with heavier industrial competitors presents an innate advantage that, if harnessed strategically, could position destinations like Hainan at the forefront of green economic transitions.
Nevertheless, the persistence of emissions from the secondary sector highlights systemic risks. This sluggish decarbonization, attributed to sustained dependence on energy-intensive manufacturing, could eclipse gains made elsewhere, especially as tourism-induced urbanization drives residential emissions upward through lifestyle shifts and infrastructure demands. These findings underscore the necessity for integrated governance frameworks that simultaneously promote cleaner industrial technology adoption and manage urban growth pressures. Without such alignment, tourism’s potential as a sustainability catalyst risks being undermined by entrenched economic structures resistant to transformation.
Hainan’s land use dynamics further illustrate the complex environmental trade-offs inherent in tourism development. The study evidences how the expansion of construction land, necessitated by non-agricultural industrial growth linked to tourism, has encroached upon ecologically sensitive zones, thereby diminishing forest cover and natural carbon sequestration capacities. However, countervailing policy efforts, particularly stringent land conservation regulations and urban greening initiatives, have attenuated these adverse effects. The expansion of urban green spaces, fostered by tourism-centric environmental programs, has introduced compensatory carbon sinks, albeit with lower sequestration efficiency than natural forests. This juxtaposition exemplifies the critical balance between development demands and ecological preservation, revealing how policy innovation can partially offset environmental degradation within constrained landscapes.
Sensitivity analyses within this framework bring to light tourism’s paradoxical role in regional carbon pathways. The simultaneous increase in absolute emissions and decline in carbon intensity exposes an intricate tension whereby immediate economic imperatives co-exist uneasily with longer-term decarbonization targets. This duality illustrates that while tourism expansion under current paradigms intensifies carbon outputs, it also fosters structural transformations toward more resource-efficient, service-led economies. Recognizing and managing this tension is essential for policymakers seeking sustainable trajectories, suggesting that governance must not only incentivize emissions reduction but also embed sustainability within tourism’s core economic value proposition.
Importantly, the model equips decision-makers with a robust analytical tool to simulate developmental scenarios, quantify directional impacts, and optimize tourism-environmental equilibria. By harnessing parameter-informed sensitivity testing, the framework assesses how varying policy levers or developmental strategies might alter carbon neutrality pathways over distinct temporal horizons. This capability moves policy discourse beyond static association toward dynamic foresight, enabling proactive design of interventions attuned to the evolving realities within tourism-dependent settings.
The methodological innovations posited here extend beyond mere descriptive analysis; they forge a new paradigm for comprehending and influencing carbon-neutral transitions in niche economies. By bridging decomposition methods with dynamic system modeling, the approach aligns theoretically rigorous frameworks with practical governance needs. The systemic, feedback-informed outlook facilitates anticipation of unintended consequences and recognition of reinforcing mechanisms, thereby supporting adaptive policy designs that can evolve amidst changing socio-economic and environmental conditions.
However, the study acknowledges notable limitations. Its generalized modeling approach, while innovative, may lack sensitivity to particularities inherent in diverse tourism typologies or cultural contexts. Future research is urged to delve into comparative case analyses, especially to capture how low-carbon ecotourism or heritage tourism modalities influence decarbonization trajectories differently. Moreover, expanding system boundaries to encompass broader economic, social, and policy factors will enhance the framework’s comprehensiveness and applicability across various governance contexts.
Temporal granularity also presents an avenue for advancement. Current models might benefit from extending analyses across more extended periods and integrating seasonal or event-driven fluctuations to capture the ephemeral yet impactful dynamics characteristic of tourism demand. Furthermore, methodological robustness can be elevated through incorporation of probabilistic simulations and multi-model validation, aligned with field data derived from stakeholder perspectives, thereby refining the reliability and relevance of analytical outputs.
In a global epoch increasingly defined by the urgent imperative to combat climate change, the presented framework shines as a beacon for tourism-dependent regions tasked with navigating complex sustainability dilemmas. The ability to unravel tourism’s dualistic impacts with high resolution and systemic insight equips planners with the knowledge necessary to craft nuanced, context-sensitive strategies. This advancement heralds a critical step toward reconciling burgeoning tourism economies with the planetary imperative of carbon neutrality, ultimately contributing to more resilient, equitable, and ecologically balanced futures.
Through the lens of Hainan Island’s evolution, this study illustrates both the promise and the challenges of harmonizing economic vitality with environmental imperatives. Tourism emerges not merely as a sector to regulate but as a dynamic agent capable of fostering structural transformations toward sustainability, if governed with foresight and rigor. The synthesis of decomposition analytics and systemic modeling offered by Li and Tong equips the academic and policy communities with a potent instrument to decode and steer this transformative potential, inspiring a paradigm shift in how we envision tourism’s role in a carbon-constrained world.
This research thus positions itself at the vanguard of sustainable tourism scholarship, advocating for refined analytical tools and integrative governance paradigms responsive to regional distinctiveness and complexity. As global tourism continues to rebound and evolve post-pandemic, frameworks like these will be indispensable in ensuring that growth contributes meaningfully to climate solutions rather than exacerbating ecological crises. The holistic perspective articulated here stands to redefine sustainable tourism governance, underscoring that in-depth, regionally-tuned quantitative analyses are indispensable in charting viable carbon-neutral trajectories for the world’s most vulnerable and vital destinations.
Subject of Research: Development of a quantitative analytical framework for carbon neutrality in tourism-dependent regions
Article Title: Developing a quantitative analytical framework for carbon neutrality in tourism-dependent regions
Article References:
Li, H., Tong, Y. Developing a quantitative analytical framework for carbon neutrality in tourism-dependent regions.
Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 797 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05145-8
Image Credits: AI Generated
