The Impact of Transport Infrastructure and Pollutant Emissions in Sustainable Tourism for Mongolia

Tourism has a positive impact on economic growth, and it is one of the rapidly growing sectors in Mongolia. The Mongolian government, focusing on the development of tourism and transportation since 1990, has made it possible for achieving continuously growing sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism is a way of maintaining a high level of tourist satisfaction while reducing adverse impacts on the environment. As transportation has been an integral part of the tourism industry, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of transportation infrastructure, CO₂ emission, and other classical demand factors on tourism flow in Mongolia by using a gravity model. Utilizing a panel data of tourists from 30 countries with the highest number of travel visits in Mongolia from 2002 to 2018, the study employs on panel co-integration analysis, aside from the conventional pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects, and random effects estimators, to estimate the long-run relationship between Mongolian tourism flow and their respective determinants. According to the result of this study, the local transportation system and transportation investment have came out negative due to the underdeveloped transportation system. Moreover, the research indicates that carbon dioxide emission has a positive impact on tourism flow in the long-run.

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