Valuing Air Quality in Tourism Cities Based on the Tourist Satisfaction Approach

Abstract

This study attempts to value air quality in the tourism cities from tourist perspectives using the tourism satisfaction approach (TSA). In the process, a large dataset is assembled which covers factors of air quality, social demographic and economics, as well as tourist satisfaction from a total of 29 primary tourism cities in China. The data is then used to assess factors which are most important in contributing to the level of tourism satisfaction and at the same time value the air quality using appropriate econometric models. The results show that the air pollution imposes a significant negative effect on the tourist satisfaction. In average, a tourist’s willingness to pay for the tourism cities’ air quality reaches ¥135.8 for 1μg/m3 of PM2.5 reduction.