The Effect of the Image of Destinations on Household Income and Distribution: Evidence From China’s Tourist Cities

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of the image of destinations on the wage income of resident households, and the corresponding income inequality, from a novel perspective. This work uses China’s excellent tourism city image program, which is an urban planning policy implemented by the central government across cities to enhance the image of the city destination in the minds of tourists, and then promote tourist motivation and local tourism development to assess the effect on household wage income and its distribution. Results show that the program significantly increases household wage income by increasing employment opportunities, promoting business and population agglomeration, and improving urban infrastructure. Additionally, the image of the city destination promotion causes an increase in income inequality among households.

Analysis of High-Quality Tourism Destinations Based on Spatiotemporal Big Data—A Case Study of Urumqi

“…Therefore, how to analyze the quality of tourism destinations has become the focus of many studies [27,28]. Currently, this analysis is mostly based on the number of visitors, that is, the quality of tourism destinations with more tourists is considered higher than those with fewer tourists [29][30][31]. However, from the perspective of actual tourism choices, this may not be entirely accurate.…”