The Influences of Travel Expenses on the Indicator Factors of Sustainability in GMS Member Countries

Chaturaporn SIHABUTR; Sakkarin NONTHAPOT

doi:10.14505/jemt.v12.1(49).20

Chaturaporn SIHABUTR Khon Kaen University, Thailand
Sakkarin NONTHAPOT Khon Kaen University, Thailand

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14505/jemt.v12.1(49).20

Abstract

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) member countries contain tourism resources that can attract foreign tourists to visit. This is also a good opportunity for national development under the concept of sustainability in three dimensions, i.e., environmental, economic, and social. Data from 1990 to 2019 was used, which were brought for the unit root test. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) was used for finding the cointegration, and the vector error correction model (VECM) and Vector autoregression (VAR) were utilized for finding the short-term relationship. The Granger causality test was based on the travel expenses on the factors of sustainability. The results revealed that the data had different stationarity levels. Similarly, the influences of travel expenses on the dimensions of sustainability of each country were different, too. The long-term relationship was found from the travel expenses on the environmental dimension in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand. The travel expenses were the Granger causality for the environmental dimension in those countries, and had a long-term relationship on the social dimension in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. However, this factor only showed the Granger causality on the social dimension in Myanmar. For the economic dimension, travel expenses had a long-term relationship only in Cambodia, and the Granger causality for the economic dimension in Cambodia and Thailand. However, travel expenses did not affect the sustainability in any dimensions in Vietnam, which possibly implied that the influences of travel expenses on sustainability in different indicators depended on the structure, readiness, and the context of each country.

References

[1] Becken, S. and Simmons, D. G. 2002. Understanding Energy Consumption Patterns of Tourist Attractions and Activities in New Zealand. Tourism Management, 23(4): 343-354. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0261-5177(01)00091-7
[2] Chou, M. C. 2013. Does Tourism Development Promote Economic Growth in Transition Countries? A Panel Data Analysis. Economic Modelling, 33: 226–232. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2013.04.024
[3] Collins, K. and García, J. L. 2012. Social Indicators and Measuring Sustainability. Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy. SCERP Monograph Series, 16: 55-74.
[4] Jamnongchob, A., Duangphakdee, O. and Hanpattanakit, P. 2017. CO2 emission of tourist transportation in Suan Phueng Mountain, Thailand. Energy Procedia, 136: 438-443. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.10.300
[5] Kanagawa, M. and Nakata, T. 2008. Assessment of Access to Electricity and the Socio-Economic Impacts in Rural Areas of Developing Countries. Energy Policy, 36(6): 2016-2029. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2008.01.041
[6] Nonthapot, S. and Watchalaanun, T. 2015. Relationship between Tourism Expansion and Telecommunication in Thailand. Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism, 6(11): 37-44. DOI:https://doi.org/10.14505/jemt.6.1(11).01
[7] Nonthapot, S. 2014. The Relationship between Tourism and Economic Development in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Panel Cointegration and Granger Causality. Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics, 5(1): 44-51.
[8] Nonthapot, S. 2020a. The Relationships among the Five Key Foreign Tourist Markets in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. Decision Science Letters, 9(4): 511-520. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5267/j.dsl.2020.9.001
[9] Nonthapot, S. 2020b. The Impact of Tourism on Electricity Imports by Thailand from Lao People’s Democratic Republic. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 10(6): 190-194. DOI:https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.9991
[10] Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y. and Smith, R. J. 2001. Bounds Testing Approaches to the Analysis of Level Relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3): 289–326. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.616
[11] Phutornkotara, K. and Nonthapot, S. 2020. The Effects of Macroeconomic Factors on the Rate of Return of Securities. Accounting, 6(7): 1265-1274. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5267/j.ac.2020.8.025
[12] Rao, P. K. 2000. Sustainable development: Economics and policy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
[13] Seghir, G. M., Mostéfa, B., Abbes, S. M. and Zakarya, G. Y. 2015. Tourism Spending-Economic Growth Causality in 49 Countries: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23: 1613–1623. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(15)00402-5
[14] Sengsuly Phoualavanh. 2017. Low Carbon Emissions in the Transport Sectors in Thailand and Lao PDR. Master’s Thesis, Thailand: Thammasat University.
[15] Sharif, A., Afshan, S. and Nisha, N. 2017. Impact of Tourism on CO2 Emission: Evidence from Pakistan. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 22(4): 408-421. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2016.1273960
[16] Trull, O., Peiró-Signes, A. and Carlos García-Díaz, J. 2019. Electricity Forecasting Improvement in a Destination Using Tourism Indicators. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(13): 3656. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133656
[17] United Nations General Assembly. 2005. 2005 World Summit Outcome, Resolution A/60/1, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 September 2005. Retrieved on 17 February 2009.
[18] Wahnschafft, R. D. 2016. Energy Indicators for Sustainable Development: Social Dimensions to 2030. Seminar on Mainstreaming Energy Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Target and Indicators into Statistical Programs of Select African Countries. Ethiopia: Addis Ababa.