Can tourism sustain itself through the pandemic: nexus between tourism, COVID-19 cases and air quality spread in the ‘Pineapple State’ Hawaii

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely hit the United States of America (USA) with tourism being one of the most directly affected sectors. The effect is even more striking in Hawaii, which has been one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States since the 1950s. While the state government’s early reaction has resulted in a decrease in COVID cases in this state, travel restrictions established in response to the pandemic have wreaked havoc on the state’s tourist economy. To quantitatively measure this impact, this paper investigates the nexus between the international tourist arrivals, COVID-19 spread, and air quality in Hawaii. Using the daily data from March 2020 to August 2020, the study employs the robust methodology comprising Wavelet coherence, partial and multiple Wavelet coherence methods. The empirical results reveal a significant coherence between international tourists, COVID-19 cases, and air quality at different time–frequency compositions.

KEYWORDS:

• Air quality
• USA
• COVID-19
• first wave
• hawaii
• tourist arrivals
• wavelet

Acknowledgement

We would like to extend our gratitude towards our employers for providing us with the Infrastructure and resources to work in this research. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [GDS] upon reasonable request.

Declaration of competing interests

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Role of Funding agency

Yong Yan and Zeeshan Fareed gratefully acknowledge the Research on the Training Mechanism of International Business Talents under the Belt and Road Strategy, Grant number 17YJCZH209 for the financial support of Humanities and Social Sciences Research, Chinese Ministry of Education.

Notes

1 Mayor's COVID-19 s Supplementary Emergency Proclamation County News Hawaii County

2 Mayor's COVID-19 s Supplementary Emergency Proclamation County News Hawaii County

3 News Releases from Department of Health| Hawaii COVID-19 Daily News Digest July 21 2020

4 News Releases from Department of Health| Hawaii COVID-19 Daily News Digest April 25, 2020

5 News Releases from Department of Health | Hawaii COVID-19 Daily News Digest May 1, 2020

6 Hawaii’s Air Quality Ranks Among Cleanest in the Nation Maui Now

7 News Releases from Department of Health| Hawaii COVID-19 Daily News Digest March 26, 2020

8 News Releases from Department of Health| Hawaii COVID-19 Daily News Digest July 21 2020

9 Mayor's COVID-19 s Supplementary Emergency Proclamation County News Hawaii County

Additional information

Funding

Yong YAN and Zeeshan Fareed acknowledge this research funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research, Chinese Ministry of Education (17YJCZH209).