Tourism development, energy consumption and Environmental Kuznets Curve: Trivariate analysis in the panel of developed and developing countries

The study investigates the relationship between economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, tourism development, energy demand, domestic investment and health expenditures with an aim to test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the panel of three diversified World's region including East Asia & Pacific, European Union and High income OECD and Non-OECD countries. The study covers the period of last nine years i.e. 2005–2013. The study used the principal component analysis (PCA) to construct tourism development index which is the amalgamation of number of tourists' arrivals, tourism receipts and international tourism expenditures. The results validate the inverted U-shaped relationship between carbon emissions and per capita income in the region. The results further substantiate the following causal relationships i.e. i) tourism-induced carbon emissions, ii) energy-induced emissions, iii) investment – induced emissions, iv) growth led tourism, v) investment led tourism and vi) health led tourism development in the region. •To investigate the relationship between Tourism Development, Energy Consumption and Environmental Kuznets Curve.•To construct the tourism development index by principal component analysis.•Validate the environmental Kuznets curve in the panel of 34 developed and developing countries.•Established tourism – induced emissions, energy – induced emissions, and investment – induced emissions.•Established growth led tourism, investment led tourism, and health expenditures led tourism development in a region.