Evaluation of ecological footprint in top tourism destination countries using multivariate regression

Today, ecological footprint is mentioned as an indicator for evaluating human activities in environmental issues. This index is a method promoted by the Global Ecological Footprint Network to measure the human demand on natural capital needed to support people or the economy. Therefore, the ecological footprint measures both the supply of natural resources and human demand in the environment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ecological footprint in the top tourist destination countries that have faced many changes in the number of tourists in the last decade. Data from the World Bank and Global Footprint Network databases have been used for the past 24 years (1995-2019) for this research. The statistical analysis of the variables shows that the amount of ecological footprint in China, Mexico, Turkey and France is equal to 6.63, 3.31 respectively; 3.22 and 3.11 and the lowest amount of ecological footprint is in England and Italy with an average of 1.45 and 1.99. There is the highest correlation (R=729) between economic growth and ecological footprint. In addition, based on multivariate regression analysis, a strong correlation (R=0.75) has been estimated between the independent variable (tourism development) and the dependent variable (ecological footprint).