Behavior of Tourism Industry under the Situation of Environmental Threats and Carbon Emission: Time Series Analysis from Thailand

The purpose of this study is to examine the environmental trend of tourism industry in the region of Thailand. For this objective, six dimensions for tourism and five for carbon emission as environmental factor is observed. Time duration of the study consists of 2000-2014 with annual observations. Data is collected from official webpage of world development indicator for the regression analysis. Findings of the study indicate that carbon emission through manufacturing and construction industries and carbon emission from other sector has their significant impact on tourism industry in Thailand. These findings are providing reasonable evidence for their regional and managerial implication as significant attention is required to control the harmful effect of environmental indicators on tourism industry. In addition, practical implication of the study can be expanded to other economies in ASEAN region like Malaysia and Indonesia as well. However, limitations of the study can be considered through considering of only one dimension of environmental factor (carbon emission), while ignoring others. Meanwhile, study is limited to the contemporary time duration and application of advance econometric techniques. Future studies can be reconsidered while overcoming these limitations.


INTRODUCTION
From the context of tourism industry, both developed and developing economies in the world have their significance. Tourism sector in ASEAN region has got significant attention from the tourists because of its natural beauty and environment friendly outcomes. Since last couple of years, these economies have experienced dramatic increase of tourism from the world (Britton, 1982;D'Amore, 1988;Ioannides and Debbage, 1998). It is found that various placed are attracting the tourists which give them an opportunity to explore and enjoy through location of these states. It is believed that many destinations in the world has got fast growing concept for their tourism, but with increasing concerned as well (Lee et al., 2015;Zaitseva et al., 2016). Another notion in the field of tourism industry is that mass tourism is a bad thing (Sharpley, 2015;Smith, 2015;Malimi, 2017). In addition, tourism and environmental issues are associated to each other (López-Sánchez and Pulido-Fernández, 2016; Kojo and Paschal, 2018). Reserachers are conducted their best efforts to analyze the relationship between various factors of environment and their effect on tourism industry by all means. In this regard, recommendations for the future decision is very much important This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License due to its social, cultural and economical implications. In addition, developing and understanding the association between natural environment and tourism provides various benefits in both fields.
From the context of Thailand, it has emerged itself in the field of international tourism with the steady growth since 1960 (Elliott, 1987;Kontogeorgopoulos, 2017;Liu and Dejphanomporn 2018). Since that time, it has developed cooperation with USA for the foreign investment in its region, improvement of infrastructure and providing a different exposure to international individuals. Meanwhile, economy of Thailand has experienced with the rapid economic transformation, and its tourism industry has been turned to "touristic transaction" (Kontogeorgopoulos, 2017). The government of Thailand has explored new areas for the attraction of international tourists in the country. Since 1980s, these efforts are continued in the economy and two major trends of tourism in Thailand has been identified (Kontogeorgopoulos, 2017). The first one is under the title of diversification of source market and second is response to western tourism market with steady growth rate. Various natural and environmental issues in the country have attained the attention by the reserachers, policy makers and related officials (Chon et al., 1993;Kontogeorgopoulos, 2017). This study has targeted the economy of Thailand to explore the idea of tourism industry under environmental threats like carbon emission, which has its adverse effect on overall climate. The rest of the paper is as follows. Section two indicates the literature context of the study. Section three and four provides discussion about variables and methods. Section four and five explains findings of the and overall conclusion. Graph below provides an outlook of tourism industry in Thailand, covering 2009-2018 with annual observations (Figure 1). It provides million arrivals per year in Thailand from world economy for the sake of tourism. With the provision of some services to the tourists, dramatic increase in tourism revenue and international tourists is experienced in the country. However, some issues are emerging in nature, causing their adverse impact on tourism industry of Thailand. These are under the title of air pollution, environmental pollution, safety of tourists through local transportation and delivery of good health related services to the tourists. Another emerging discussion in Thailand is related to the hotel industry and its services for the tourists.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Various studies have examined the concept of tourism in different economies of the world. For instance, (Kamran and Omran, 2018) have examined the impact of environmental indicators, natural climate on the tourism industry of Pakistan. Data is observed over last three decades with annual observation. Multiple regression approach is applied to examine the effect of selected regressors on tourism industry. It is found that tourism industry in Pakistan is directly influenced by set of variables from natural environment, but most significant are the natural and climate indicators. Research work conducted by (Lerner and Haber, 2001;Luong et al., 2017) have explored the concept of performance for small tourism ventures with the presence of environment and development. While applying four integral model, key focus was on environmental milieu, support from the institution, entrepreneurial human capital with the services provided by business venture (Umrani et al., 2016). The results indicate that dual nature of the impact of support from institution exists on tourism sector. In addition, idea of tourism is also explored from the context of social capital as well. Akrivos et al. (2014) aims to explore the concept of entrepreneurial tourism with the adoption of sustainable resources . Research approach is based on the data collected from 75 entrepreneurial respondents. Findings of the study indicates that sustainable sources are playing significant role in determining the tourism industry. Tang et al. (2017) examine those factors which have their influence on the carbon emission of tourism industry. For this purpose, carbon decomposition model is used, extracted from a case study in China. Authors have explained that carbon emissions are significantly associated to the tourism scale and intensity of energy as well. Meanwhile, their study has contributed through focusing on theoretical framework with the development of low carbon tourism. Meng et al. (2016) have examined the quantifying direct and indirect carbon emission in tourism industry of China. It is observed that during the time of 2010, overall 2.447 carbon emission is examined from tourism industry . Practical suggestions of the study indicate that there is strong need of attention for the tourism industry and carbon emission in targeted economies. Peeters (2010) considers the tourism transport, carbon dioxide emission and technology factors. His findings indicates the fact that final impact of consumption of energy significantly depends upon the both types of negative and positive feedback from the system of technology in tourism transport. It is also suggested that for the better future outcomes in tourism industry, focus is required towards the technological advancement in transport of tourism and related issues. Thongdejsri and Nitivattananon (2019) aims to examine the procedure for low carbon tourism program as implemented in world city of heritage towards sustainability. Design of the study is based on the sustainable tourism with set of dimensions being observed. It is observed that application of low carbon tourism program in world heritage city has provides significant feedback for the future application. Additionally, carbon emission due to increasing tourism has its managerial discussion. Chenoweth (2009) has provided his Source: (Thailand-business-supplement 2018). https://thailandbusiness-supplement.com/2018/11/06/thailand-jumps-by-thelargest-amount-in-efficiency-index empirical contribution for the purpose of investigating range of tourism related travel operations with the measuring the carbon dioxide emission as resulted with international vocation patterns. Research design is based on the data for the vocations in world economy with the relative values of carbon emission and their climate impact. It is found that international flights among the contents and cruise ships are causing an impact of increasing carbon emission. Meanwhile, they have suggested some approaches to lower the carbon emission in the world economy. Scott et al. (2006) examines the factor of climate change with sustainability under ski-based tourism in the north and eastern region of America. Their study has developed a model to assess the impact of climate change with the possible level of risk too. It is suggested that until the time of 2020, climate change will significantly occur in the six areas being examined with the increasing trend in up coming time as well . Some authors have expressed their opinion that climate change and weather have their significant influence on the tourism industry along with recreational activities as well (Butler, 2001;Koetse and Rietveld, 2009;Lise and Tol, 2002;Scott et al., 2005;Wall and Badke, 1994). While series of studies are conducted to explore the potential impact of climate change on different industries including tourism (Amelung et al., 2007;Becken and Hay, 2007;Gössling et al., 2002;Hall and Higham, 2005;Hamilton et al., 2005;Moreno and Becken, 2009;Perry, 2006;Scott, 2011;Scott et al., 2008;Weaver, 2011;Liu, 2018). Yet, the exploration of tourism industry from the context of climate change, environmental factors are their present and future consequences will be known as an ongoing discussion.
To the best of author's findings, this study is among the initial contribution in the field of tourism industry and carbon emission in the region of Thailand over last 15 years. Although, some studies have provided their theoretical and empirical contribution, but with limited consideration of both tourism and carbon emission factors. Significance of the study can be viewed in a way that it has investigated five dimensions for tourism industry and six dimensions of carbon emission for separate regression findings. Meanwhile theoretical contribution of the study in existing body of literature can be viewed in a context that it is providing a comprehensive outlook in the field of tourism industry.

VARIABLES OF THE STUDY
For both proxies of tourism and environmental factors, below is the detailed for the variable names, abbreviations, operational definition, measurement and online data source. All data is free from any type of biasness, hence no ethical issues for the empirical investigation under regression findings.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Present section covers the discussion for research design and methodology being adopted. This study is based on the time series data from the economy of Thailand during the time of 2000 to 2014 with annual observation. Data is collected from official web source of world development indicator WDI for all the variables of the study. After the data collection both descriptive and regression analysis approach is applied. Descriptive approach is widely used method to explore the data set and related trends over the years. While regression approach reflects the causal association between variables of the study. For present study five proxies for dependent variable under the title of tourism industry in Thailand and six dimensions for carbon emissions as major explanatory variables of environmental issues in Thailand are selected. For each of the dependent variables, separate findings are presented under results and discussion of the study.    Table 3 is 96.7, reflecting a higher variation by all environmental factors in international tourism expense in Thailand.     chance of error. Through CO 2 MET effect is −4.680, significant at 1%, reflecting its negative influence on international tourism. Through carbon dioxide emission from transport, coefficient is −4.680 with standard error of 2.102. This impact is found to be significant. While carbon emission through other sector indicates an effect of 6.698 with the t-value of 8.145, explaining a direct influence on tourism industry in Thailand. While carbon emission through manufacturing and construction industries, effect on international tourism receipt is −2.024, significant at 1% chance of error. While CO 2 EEHP has reflected an insignificant impact on tourism receipt. Overall value of explained variation as defined by all explanatory variables of environmental factors under Table 5 is 0.893, reflecting a good change. F-test has a score of 14.964 which is above threshold point of 3.50, significant at 1% chance of error. It means that all the coefficients are significantly different from zero, reflecting a good change.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION
This study has empirically investigated the effect of carbon emission and its various proxies on international tourism in the region of Thailand. For this purpose, data over last 15 years have been collected from official website of world bank for both environmental factors and tourism industry.
Findings through regression analysis explains that for ITEXP, significant determinants are carbon emission through overall sector, manufacturing industries and constructions, and carbon emission through other sector has their significant influence. For international tourism expense as measured through Us    dollars, effect of carbon emission overall, carbon emission through transport, carbon emission through manufacturing industries and construction, and carbon emission through heat and production is significant. For international tourism expense as measured through tourism items have a significant influence from carbon emission overall, carbon emission through transport, and carbon emission through manufacturing and construction industries. While significant determinant for international tourism receipt are carbon emission overall, carbon emission through transport, and carbon emission manufacturing and construction industries. In addition, for international tourism expenditure for passenger transport item, significant determinants are overall carbon emission, carbon emission through transport, and emission from manufacturing and construction industries. Besides, last proxy of international tourism receipt for passenger transport items has a significant influence from all proxies of carbon emission.
Based on these findings, it is concluded that for overall tourism industry, environmental factors are playing their significant role in general. While in depth analysis indicates that factors like carbon emission from manufacturing and construction industries and carbon emission through other sectors have their significant impact on all dimensions of tourism industry in the region of Thailand. These findings are providing reasonable evidence for their regional and managerial implication as significant attention is required to control the harmful effect of environmental indicators on tourism industry. In addition, practical implication of the study can be expanded to other economies in ASEAN region like Malaysia and Indonesia as well. However, limitations of the study can be considered through considering of only one dimension of environmental factor (carbon emission), while ignoring others. Meanwhile, study is limited to the contemporary time duration and application of advance econometric techniques. Future studies can be reconsidered while overcoming these limitations.