A multidimensional perspective on the relationship between tourism and green growth

AbstractThis paper examines the various channels through which the tourism ecosystem can affect green development, utilizing a configurational approach to identify underlying mechanisms. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and necessary condition analysis are employed. The findings reveal that tourism does not act as either a necessary component or bottleneck to green development. Four models of tourism-driven high green development are identified including migration-based, growth-based, government-led tourism-driven, and government-led non-tourism-driven. Additionally, the causal relationship between tourism and green development is apparent primarily in less economically-developed regions. The study affirms the asymmetric causal impact of tourism on green development and presents a systematic and in-depth understanding of the asymmetric multivariate pathways that tourism can use to promote green development. These findings represent a significant contribution to the current literature and offer new perspectives for the field of sustainable tourism research.Keywords: Configurational analysistourismgreen developmentgreen total factor productivityfuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysisnecessary condition analysis Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71764027) and National Social Science Fund of China (22BGL157)