A Cross-Countries Analysis of Biodiversity Loss and Tourism Demand

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between tourism arrivals and the global incidence of biodiversity loss, measured by the probability of the extinction of species of plants, mammals, birds, and fish while controlling for other relevant covariates: protected areas, agrarian production's share in GDP, crop production, energy intensity, and population levels. This study is designed around cross-sectional data from 2018 in 178 countries across the world. The biodiversity loss–tourism arrivals nexus is assessed in this study by the count model estimation. We adopted negative binomial and hurdle negative binomial regressions. The findings showed the existence of a positive relationship between tourism arrivals and some species extinction variables. Tourism demand is responsible for an excessive degree of biodiversity loss in the case of mammals and birds. The findings of this study suggest that an overdispersion test due to count data constraints should be taken into account when examining the link between biodiversity loss and tourism in a cross-sectional analysis.