Happiness and tourism activities: an empirical and theoretical interpretation

In the recent decades, an increasing attention has been dedicated to tourism as a determinant of individuals happiness. The relationship between tourism and subjective well-being has been investigate in the framework of social capital formation. Empirical research evidenced that social capital contributes to people happiness. Since leisure activities allows people to build social relationships and expand their cultural perspective, tourism may powerfully permit to foster subjective well-being. However, there are a variety of forms of tourism and activities based on different motivations and reference values. Some of them just reproduce the everyday life while others facilitate relationships and connectedness. This paper tries to investigate and shed additional light on the relationship between type of tourism and tourists’ happiness. It tests empirically and explains theoretically whether more appreciative form of tourism pay a higher “return on investments” in term happiness.