COMPLETION REPORT
Estimating and comparing the tourism carborn footprint between Japan and Taiwan
Dr.Ya-Yen Sun
Assistant Professor
Department of Transporation & Communication Management Science
National Cheng Kung University
The tourism carbon-efficiency comparison of Taiwan and Japan
With the emerging of the global value chains (GVCs), imported products and services play a critical rolein the quality and quantity of tourism services. What to import and how much to import thus concerns the tradeoffs of maintaining economic prosperity, reducing domestic carbon emissions and improving tourism carbon
efficiency at destinations. This study presents an environmentally extended input-output model to assess thedistribution of tourism economic and environmental effects in the global segments. We propose that a country’s
carbon competitiveness rests on two perspectives, including 1) the share of GDP and carbon emissions that are
obtained in GVCs, and 2) the carbon efficiency performance per dollar GDP at the destination economy. The firstindicator, share of GDP and emissions in GVCs, measures the relative economic welfare a destination can secureand the percentage of the global carbon responsibility. The second indicator, on the hand, reflects the opportunity
cost in delivering one dollar of tourism GDP, benchmarking the destination against others. Both measurements
document collectively a comprehensive environmental responsibility as well as a country’s efficiency in its
tourism carbon emissions. These two measurements highlight three essential factors of competitiveness - theability to convert sales to GDP, the ability to produce tourism services based on minimum energy consumption,and the ability to rely on international trade and services to improve the agglomerated domestic tourism carbonefficiency.
In the example of bilateral travel flow between Taiwan and Japan, there was around 1.3 million visitors
travelling from Japan to Taiwan, generating a total of US$ 2,286 million foreign receipts, of which, 29% was for
local lodging expense, 22% for international airfare, 17% for shopping expenses, and 11% for dinning in 2011.
The 2,286 million spending has a total (direct + indirect) economic impact of 4,463 million in sales, and 2,238
million in value added. The tourism carbon footprint is estimated to be 1597 kilotons of CO2 globally.
In contrast, around 1 million of Taiwan residents have made the visits to Japan, and their trip expenses
were around 1,316 million. The largest share of Taiwanese trip expenses goes to international air far (30%),
followed by shopping (26%), lodging (19%) and dinning (14%). This market incurred a direct spending of 1,316
million, generating a total effect of 2,851 million in sales and 1,300 million in value added across the globalsegments. Their tourism carbon footprint is estimated to be 866 kilotons globally.
In the context of bilateral travel flow between Taiwan and Japan, both regions secure 70% of the tourism
GDP from the foreign receipts in the global value chains but Japan outsourced 70% of their carbon footprint toforeign production while Taiwan only outsourced about 40%. In addition, the tourism carbon intensity of Japan is

55% more efficient than the performance of Taiwan (0.27 kg CO2/GDP vs. 0.60 kg CO2/GDP). From theseperspectives, Japan demonstrates the comparative advantages over Taiwan in terms of its ability to produce a clean
and carbon efficient services in domestic tourism production lines as well as to collaborate with foreign suppliers
for energy-intensive products and services.
Note: (1) Print or type the result of your Research in English with 400～500 words. As the content of this"COMPLETION REPORT" will be opened to the public on the web-site of Foundation, you arerequested to provide Foundation, with the same content in the form of electronic file by e-mail.
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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)

Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
Journal: Tourism Management
Title: Global Value Chains and the National Tourism Carbon Competitiveness
Date: Plan to submit the manuscript on August 2016Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)

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