The impacts of the tourism sector on the overall eco-efficiency of 22 Latin America and Caribbean countries from 1995 to 2016 were examined. A Data Envelopment Analysis was used to calculate the overall eco-efficiency of each country (considering the CO₂ emissions as the input and the GDP as the output). Posteriorly, a Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag model was applied to analyse the impacts of tourism arrivals, tourism capital investment, and direct tourism contribution to employment on eco-efficiency. The results indicated that tourism arrivals decrease these countries eco-efficiency, both in the short- and long-run. Contrariwise, tourism capital investment and direct tourism contribution to employment seem to promote eco-efficiency in the long-run. These findings recommend that policymakers should respect these destinations carrying capacity and, simultaneously, encourage investments in sustainable tourism projects and productive employment to all.

研究了旅游业对 22 个拉丁美洲和加勒比国家 1995 年至 2016 年整体生态效率的影响。数据包络分析用于计算每个国家的整体生态效率（考虑到 CO ₂排放量作为输入，GDP 作为输出）。之后，应用面板自回归分布滞后模型来分析旅游人数、旅游资本投资和旅游对就业的直接贡献对生态效率的影响。结果表明，无论是短期还是长期，旅游人数都会降低这些国家的生态效率。相反，从长远来看，旅游资本投资和旅游业对就业的直接贡献似乎会促进生态效率。这些调查结果建议政策制定者应尊重这些目的地的承载能力，同时鼓励对可持续旅游项目和生产性就业的投资。