Research On The Impact Of Tourism On Happiness

Happiness is the ultimate goal for human.Especially with the economic development and material prosperity,people have begun to shift from pure pursuit of basic needs to focus on happiness.More and more government agencies and policy makers are beginning to realize that it is a more effective and efficient way to evaluate social progress,social development,and government policies through happiness,rather than simply using economic output indicators such as GDP.For example,the United Nations Development Program(UNDP)in the “1990 Human Development Report” proposed to use the Human Development Index to measure the level of economic and social development of the United Nations member states.In June 2012,the United Nations General Assembly designated March 20 th each year as the “International Happiness Day”,emphasizing that happiness is a universal goal and aspiration in human life around the world,and has important practical significance.With the continuous prosperity of China's tourism market,tourism has become a strategic pillar industry of the national economy.Personally,tourism has also become an important way for people to obtain happiness,which is of great significance for improving the quality of life.At the 2018 National Tourism Work Conference,tourism was identified as the first of the “five happy industries”,and together with culture,sports,health,and pension industries constitute five happy industries,reflecting the important function of tourism for the happiness.It can be said that tourism reflects people's pursuit of a better life and is an important indicator of people's happiness.However,the study of tourism happiness around the world has only risen in a dozen years.The current research mainly studies the impact of tourism on happiness from the perspectives of tourism experience or tourism activities.In the study of happiness economics,the research on the impact of tourism on happiness has just begun.Existing studies have proved that the length of stay of tourism positively affects the happiness of tourists,but it has not been studied from the perspective of consumption expenditure.In China's academic circles,research on tourism happiness has just begun,and no systematic theory has yet been formed.As a kind of consumption,what is the relationship between consumption expenditure and personal happiness? How does tourism consumption affect tourist happiness? What are the inner mechanisms? The above questions have not been answered yet.In addition,according to the theory of supply and demand,the consumption of tourists is converted into the tourism income of destinations.Tourism income is an important indicator of the level of local tourism development and an important part of the destination economy.As tourism activity is the spatial displacement of tourists from their home to destinations.In addition to regional tourism income,tourist arrivals are another important indicator of tourism development.According to the stakeholder theory,tourists and destination residents are indispensable parts of the tourism system.Tourism happiness not only refers to the happiness of tourists,but also includes the happiness of destination residents.Therefore,in addition to studying the impact of tourism consumption on the happiness of tourists,it is also necessary to study the impact of tourism development on the happiness of destination residents.However,from the existing research,there is no research based on tourism consumption expenditure to study tourism happiness from the perspective of tourists and residents.This study is based on the perspective of tourism consumption.Using the data from the Chinese Family Panel Survey(CFPS)2012-2016,the panel fixed-effects model and panel quantile regression are used to analyze the impact of tourism consumption expenditure on tourist happiness,and the impact of tourism income and tourist arrivals on the happiness of destination residents.Study 1 examines the impact of tourism consumption and tourist happiness.The results show that tourism consumption has an inverted U-shaped effect on tourist happiness,that is,as tourism consumption increases,tourist happiness increases;but when tourism consumption is higher than a certain threshold,as tourism consumption increases,tourist happiness reduce.The reason is that with the increase of tourism consumption,the radius of tourism expands.According to the theory of expectation level and hedonic adaptation theory,the enjoyment and novelty of tourism decrease,and the expectation,pressure and fatigue of tourism increase,so the increase in happiness slows down.At the same time,due to the consumption nature of tourism,tourism consumption may crowd out other consumption.Therefore,when tourism consumption increases to a certain value,tourism reduces happiness.And tourism consumption affects tourist happiness through health,social connection and confidence,revealing the health effects and social attributes of tourism.Through group regression,we found that the impact of tourism consumption on tourist happiness is significant among middle-income groups,but not among low-and high-income groups;the impact of tourism consumption on tourist happiness is significantly between urban and rural residents;the inverted U-shaped influence of tourism consumption on tourist happiness is not significant for tourists in the eastern region,but significant for tourists in the central and western regions;the impact of tourism consumption on tourist happiness is significant for female tourists,but not for male tourists.Study 2 studies the impact of regional tourism income and tourist arrivals on destination residents' happiness.The study found that tourism income has a significant positive impact on destination residents' happiness,and tourism arrivals have a significant negative impact on destination residents' happiness.Economic growth,health,and personal income levels play some mediated roles.In the group regression,regional tourism income has a significant positive impact on the happiness of lowand middle-income residents,and no significant impact on the happiness of high-income residents;tourism income has no significant impact on the happiness of urban residents,but has a significant positive impact on the happiness of rural residents;tourism income has a significant negative impact on the happiness of residents in the east,and has a significant negative impact on the happiness of the residents in the east,but significant positive impact on the happiness of the residents in the central and western regions;tourism income has a significant positive impact on the happiness of male residents,but has no significant impact on the happiness of female residents.The negative impact of tourist arrivals on the happiness of destination residents is very significant,and it is significant in all groups.The innovation of this article is as follows.First,the research perspective is new.From the perspective of happiness economics,the research on the effect of tourism on happiness is still relatively poor,especially from the perspectives of tourism consumption expenditure,regional tourism income and tourist arrivals,and its dual impact on the happiness of tourists and destination residents has not yet been studied.This article puts tourism in the framework of the improvement of residents' happiness,broadens the horizon of happiness research,and deepens the study of happiness economics.Second,the research ideas are new.This paper uses health,social connection,and confidence as mediators to study the impact path of tourism consumption expenditure on tourists' happiness,and reveals the health and social effects of tourism.In addition,this paper uses health,economic growth,and personal income levels as mediators to study the influence mechanism of regional tourism income and tourist arrivals on the happiness of destination residents,and reveals the health effects and economic effects of tourism.It can be seen that this article provides a new research idea and enriches the study of tourism happiness.Third,the research method is new.Based on the theories of psychology and sociology,related research hypotheses on the impact of tourism on happiness are put forward,and a variety of econometric analysis methods are used to verify them.At present,in the study of national happiness in China,cross-section data are mostly used,and the information obtained is limited.Especially in the study of residents' happiness in tourist destinations,related research has just begun.Most of them take a specific tourist destination as an example,and obtain relevant data through interviews or self-made questionnaires with surrounding residents.And there is no follow-up investigation,which may cause important information to be leaked.This research uses Chinese Family Panel Survey 2012-2016 data to construct provincial panel data by matching regional tourism macro data with micro data such as personal happiness.Panel fixed-effect models,panel quantile regression,and panel ordered Probit and The hybrid OLS regression and other econometric methods are used to study the impact of tourism consumption on the happiness of tourists,and the impact of regional tourism income and tourism arrivals on the happiness of destination residents.It has strong academic innovation and practical significance.