Exploring energy and tourism economy growth nexus with DEA-based index systems: The case of sustainable development of tourism destinations

The promotion of sustainable tourism to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has garnered considerable attention. This paper aims to present a comprehensive analytical framework with data envelopment analysis (DEA) based index systems for examining the interaction between energy and the economic growth of tourism, with a specific focus on tourism destinations within the Yangtze River Delta region of China. The significance of energy in enhancing tourism economy efficiency is established by treating energy input as separable and disposable, while non-energy inputs are considered quasi-fixed. Subsequently, a quasi-fixed energy input directional distance function within the DEA framework has been developed to assess tourism economy efficiency. Furthermore, this paper explores the relationships among environmental pollution, tourism carbon emissions, and tourism economy growth using coupling coordination and decoupling models, respectively. The results indicate that, although improving, there remains a gap for tourism destinations to achieve integrated development between environmental and economic systems. The decoupling type of tourism destinations transitions from expansive negative decoupling to strong decoupling, and the relationship between tourism economic development and tourism carbon emissions tends to be coordinated. This paper provides an empirical study on the measurement of tourism economy efficiency and the relationship between carbon emissions, environmental pollution, and tourism performance. It advances understanding towards implementing sustainable and integrated regional development strategies.