Tourism at the Crossroads between Well-Being, Public Health and the Environment: Panel Data Evidence from the European Union

Daniel Badulescu, Ramona Simut (), Ciprian Simut and Andrei-Vlad Badulescu
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Ramona Simut: Department of Economics and Business, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Oradea, 410087 Oradea, Romania
Ciprian Simut: Department of Philosophy, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth 6031, South Africa
Andrei-Vlad Badulescu: Faculty of Medicine, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-22

Abstract: The recent pandemic crisis led to a drop in tourism, and it highlighted the connection between tourism, healthcare, environmental concerns and well-being. In this context, the purpose of the research is to clarify the relationship between tourism, happiness, healthcare and environmental expenditure. Statistical data provided by the World Bank, Eurostat and the World Happiness Database from the EU27 countries, from 2000 to 2019, were used. In order to investigate the relationship between these indicators, the panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method was used. In the long run, happiness and environmental and healthcare expenditure have a statistically significant and positive impact on tourism arrivals and receipts. It follows that a 1% increase in happiness supports between 4% and 9% of international tourism, while a 1% increase in environmental expenditure supports an increase of 2% in international tourism. Additionally, there is a significant interaction between happiness and either environmental or healthcare expenditure in the long run. This means that increasing happiness diminishes the effect of the later on tourism arrivals and receipts. No short-term relationship was identified between arrivals and any of the above-mentioned variables. In the same context, healthcare expenditure has a negative short-term effect on tourism receipts. The research contributes to the literature by suggesting that increasing national happiness, healthcare and environmental expenditure has a beneficial spillover effect on tourism arrivals and receipts in the long run.

Keywords: health; well-being; environment; happiness; international tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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