IS SUSTAINABLE TOURISM VALID FOR THE BALKAN COUNTRIES? EVIDENCE FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE HYPOTHESIS

Abstract

The transition toward sustainable tourism has become increasingly important for the Balkan countries, where tourism represents a significant source of economic activity but also generates growing environmental pressures. This study examines the environmental implications of tourism development in eleven Balkan countries over the period 1995–2024 by investigating the relationships among greenhouse gas emissions, economic growth, electricity consumption, and international tourist arrivals within the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework. The empirical analysis applies panel cointegration tests, FMOLS and DOLS long-run estimators, the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator, and the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test. The results provide evidence of a U-shaped EKC relationship, indicating that greenhouse gas emissions initially decline with economic growth but increase again at higher income levels. Electricity consumption and tourist arrivals exert positive and statistically significant long-run effects on greenhouse gas emissions. The causality analysis further reveals bidirectional causality between greenhouse gas emissions and electricity consumption, together with unidirectional causal relationships from GDP to greenhouse gas emissions, tourist arrivals, and electricity consumption, and from tourist arrivals to greenhouse gas emissions and electricity consumption. The study contributes to the existing literature by providing recent regional evidence for a heterogeneous group of tourism-intensive Balkan economies and by jointly examining tourism activity, energy consumption, economic growth, and environmental pressure within a unified panel framework. The findings indicate that tourism-led growth in the region cannot be assumed to become environmentally sustainable automatically as income increases, highlighting the need for tourism decarbonization, greater reliance on renewable energy, and country-sensitive environmental policies.