Tourism and energy poverty: a panel approach for developing economies

This study aims to examine the relationship between international tourism development and energy poverty in developing economies.

The analysis is based on a panel of 54 developing countries over the period 2000–2021. The empirical strategy uses a system generalized method of moments approach to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity.

The results show a significant negative relationship between tourism revenues and all indicators of energy access, including electricity access, rural electrification and access to clean cooking technologies.

This study provides new empirical evidence on the tourism–energy poverty nexus in developing countries and highlights that tourism development does not necessarily improve energy access.