Sustainable development is an important strategy promoted by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and governments of many destinations. However, the seeming contradiction about the environment vis‐à‐vis business interests may result in noncompliant responses to the environmental policies and regulations and hinder implementation of strategies for improved sustainability. Using resource‐based theory, we empirically test the influence of environmental competitiveness on tourism growth. Using a biennial dataset from 130 destinations between 2009 and 2017, the current work applies the fixed effect (FE) and threshold models to identify a strong link for developed destinations but a weak link for less developed regions. Several indicators of environmental competitiveness significantly affect tourism demand for destinations with high GDP per capita; the effects are not significant, however, for low GDP per capita destinations. These findings demonstrate that environmental factors are important influencers of destination competitiveness and are positively linked to economic performance of developed destinations. The connection between environmental competitiveness and tourism growth in less developed destinations seems weak and insignificant. A possible reason could be that such destinations lack the capital guarantee to translate environmental competitiveness into tourism demand. This article extends the resource‐based theory from the corporate level into the destination level and theoretically contributes to the sustainable tourism literature. Our findings provide the UNWTO and destination governments with empirical evidence to support their sustainable strategies and with suggestions concerning how to strengthen the environment‐performance link for less developed destinations.

中文翻译：

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可持续发展对旅游目的地是否合理？环境竞争力与旅游业增长关系的实证研究

可持续发展是联合国世界旅游组织（世旅组织）和许多目的地政府推动的一项重要战略。但是，关于环境与商业利益之间的矛盾似乎可能导致对环境政策和法规的回应不合规定，并阻碍实施可持续发展战略。使用基于资源的理论，我们通过经验检验了环境竞争力对旅游业增长的影响。当前工作使用2009年至2017年期间的130个目的地的两年期数据集，应用固定效应（FE）和阈值模型来确定发达目的地的强关联，而欠发达地区的弱关联。环境竞争力的几个指标极大地影响了人均国内生产总值目的地的旅游需求；但是，对于人均GDP较低的地区，影响并不明显。这些发现表明，环境因素是目的地竞争力的重要影响因素，并且与发达目的地的经济绩效具有正相关关系。在欠发达地区，环境竞争力与旅游业增长之间的联系似乎微弱而微不足道。一个可能的原因可能是这些目的地缺乏将环境竞争力转化为旅游需求的资本保障。本文将基于资源的理论从公司层面扩展到目的地层面，并在理论上为可持续旅游业文献做出了贡献。