The mediating role of ICTs in the relationship between international tourism and environmental degradation: fit as a fiddle

The United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) proposed 17 effective plans linked with three principal aims, i.e., eradicating poverty, conserving the natural environment, and ensuring prosperity for all. Travel and tourism are the leading stream sector through which all the three stated United Nations themes could be achieved efficiently. The future project of Saudi Arabia's vision is also in line with the United Nation SDGs that much emphasized on tourism expansion, innovation, and sustainable development, which directly supports the SDG-8 (i.e., decent work and economic growth), SDG-9 (i.e., industries, innovation, and infrastructure), SDG-12 (i.e., responsible consumption and production), and SDG-13 (i.e., climate change). The study’s objective is to evaluate the country’s e-tourism initiatives and green development agenda in the long-run by using the quarterly data from 1995Q1 to 2018Q4. The study employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for estimating the short- and long-run relationship between the variables. Further, the study developed an “e-tourism index” that combines ICT’s share in tourism income and expenditures items by principle component matrix (PCM). The results show that oil rents, ores and metal exports, and railways goods transportation depleted natural resources, while ICT’s share in energy demand, inbound tourism, and trade openness conserve natural resources via the adoption of advanced technologies, eco-tourism knowledge, and green technology imports in a country. The results confirmed the U-shaped relationship between the country’s per capita income and natural resource depletion in a given period. The positive relationship (negative impact) of air transportation freight and trade openness with carbon emissions is evident in the short-run; however, the result is insignificantly determined in the long-run. The industry value-added and ICT’s share in energy demand substantially delimit carbon emissions through cleaner production techniques and green innovation. The U-shaped relationship in the short- and flat relationship in the long-run is found for carbon-growth nexus. In the long-run, inbound tourism has a positive (negative impact) relationship with carbon emissions that need sustainable tourism policies to delimit carbon emissions. The air-railways passengers carried and trade openness is the main antecedents that influenced fossil fuel energy consumption in the short- and long-run, while in the long-run, tourism income, ICT’s share in energy demand, and industry value-added delimit fossil fuel combustion. The study confirmed the inverted U-shaped relationship between carbon emissions and per capita income in a country. The e-tourism index positively influences the country’s economic growth, mobile share in the energy demand, industry value-added, and railways goods transportation. In the long-run, the mobile share in energy demand and railways goods transported increase while air transport freight decreases economic growth. Finally, the e-tourism index is positively influenced by industrial value-added and ICT’s share in fossil fuel energy demand. Simultaneously, air transportation passengers carried and ICT’s share in carbon emissions negatively affected the e-tourism index in a country. The study concludes that Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 of e-tourism and green sustainable development could be achieved by promoting green ICTs, cleaner production technologies, sustainable consumption and production, tight environmental regulations, and green travel and tourism infrastructure, which ultimately will support the Saudi’s vision realization programs towards the country’s prosperity.