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The influence of visiting Buddhist heritage sites on happiness is the core concern of this article. China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains provided the setting for the study. Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine the positive effects of Buddhism on visitors. Thematic analysis was first undertaken to understand the Buddhism-induced happiness. In the terms of Buddhism, the visitors’ happiness was related to the law of karma, impermanence and reincarnation. The PERMA model from positive psychology was then utilized as a second interpretive framework, in which positive changes in visitors’ attitudes, behaviours and life were noted. The links between the core values of Buddhism and the PERMA model were then established and portrayed. The study makes a theoretical contribution by connecting the positive psychology constructs and the effects of Buddhism in the tourism context. In addition, this study provides insightful suggestions for local communities to manage religious heritage sites sustainably.

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This study has conducted two rounds of interviews at the Four Great Buddhist Mountains (FGBMs) in China mainland to explore spiritual values and relevant influencing factors of religious visitors. The results analysis has categorized seven themes of spiritual values. It reflected that visitors were trying to seek a balanced life status through maintaining good relationships with their inner selves, other people, and all forms of life. The identified spiritual values were simultaneously influenced by visitors' religious belief, cultural values, and environmental elements. The findings contribute to the existing knowledge about values and provide implications for developing religious tourism sustainably.

Commercial activities exist at different religious sites and the practices arouse global concern. This study identifies and assesses religious commercial activities and explores how they affect tourists' attitudes. The well-known Four Great Buddhist Mountains in China were selected as research sites. Using grounded theory, this study initially conducted 80 detailed interviews to build an understanding of commercialization and then investigated 438 travel blogs. The resulting seven commercial categories were: entrance ticket, food and drinks, accommodation, transportation, shopping, staff service, and entertainment. In addition, the level of different commercial categories for all research sites were assessed. The findings showed that tourists had more negative comments about food and drinks, accommodation, and staff service, with less criticism of transportation and entertainment. It implied that tourists were more likely to feel annoyed when tourism products have ambiguous or exaggerated prices and there is a lack of uniform service standards. The research findings offer insights for sustainable development of religious tourism aiming to benefit both local communities and tourists.

Research on tourism has gradually focused on the study of well-being, but relatively little attention has been paid to the psychological well-being of tourism practitioners. This study adopted the theoretical lens of explanatory style and the PERMA model (P = positive emotion, E = engagement, R = relationships, M = meaning, A = accomplishment) to investigate the influence of tourism practitioners’ explanatory style on their psychological well-being (PWB). The survey study demonstrated that explanatory style was significantly related to PWB; whilst an optimistic explanatory style was positively related to PWB, a pessimistic explanatory style was negatively related to it. Additionally, in the context of Chinese culture, tourism practitioners were inclined to attribute PWB to internal, stable, and specific causes. This study falls within the extensive field of occupational health psychology and theoretically contributes to the literature by connecting positive psychology and its effects on practitioners in the tourism context. Meanwhile, there are similarities and differences between the PWB and explanatory style in the Chinese cultural context and in the Western context. This finding has practical implications for generalizing the PWB of tourism practitioners in different cultural backgrounds, especially in countries with Eastern cultural backgrounds, further improving the sustainable development of tourism destinations.