Social scarcity and tourist's life satisfaction: An empirical and theoretical analysis

This paper presents the results of an analysis that compared two types of tourists who hold a different view of and interact differently with their surrounding environment. It evidenced that more consumptive and consumer-oriented tourists are normally less happy than those practising more appreciative and sharing-oriented activities. To explain the differential, it offers a theoretical interpretation based on the idea that individual choices are not autonomous and independent, and that aspects like comparisons, observability of possessions and level of competition in the reference group may dampen the effect of various correlates on people's life satisfaction.