Impact of COVID-19 on the economic loss and resource conservation of China's tourism industry from the supply chain perspective

Abstract

The travel restriction leads to the enormous economic loss to the tourism industry. In this paper, the economic loss and the environmental gains (e.g., water and energy resources) from COVID-19 impact on China’s tourism industry are estimated based on environmentally extended multiple regional input-output model. Results indicate that the China’s tourism consumption loss triggered 921 billion US$ output loss via supply chain in 2020, which account for 7 % of GDP in 2019. Additionally, the economic loss further ripples tourism water footprint conservation of 10 billion m3 (equal to the annual water consumption of Poland) and tourism energy footprint conservation of 116 million tce (equal to the annual energy consumption of Australia). Findings reveal that regions with large tourism economic losses are not completely consistent with the regions with significant relief of water and energy pressures. Water pressure in Xinjiang (Northwest) and energy pressure in Hainan (South) have been alleviated due to reduced tourism consumption along the Southeast coast. These knock-on effects highlight a deeper internal link between the economy and the environment. The development of tourism in the post-COVID-19 era needs to reduce the direct water and energy footprint of local area by applying advanced water-saving and energy-saving technologies.