Improving the Subjective Well-being of USA Residents

According to the study of Allen et al., (1998), USA rural resident's overall subjective well-being is influenced by seven factors: public services, economics, environment, medical services, citizen involvement, formal education, and recreation services. Among them, residents' satisfaction with environmental concern, citizen involvement and public services are the most sensitive to tourism. This finding is consistent with a more recent study which expanded the sample to residents in both urban and rural areas (Andereck & Nyaupane, 2010). Andereck and Nyaupane (2010) identified that tourism related subjective well-being of local residents consists of eight domains: recreation, community pride, economic strength, natural/cultural preservation, community well-being, way of life, crime and substance, and urban issue.

Combining these two studies I found that in developing rural tourism, destination managers should pay attention to the potential change of sense of community, residents' involvement opportunity, living environment (natural, cultural and residential), income distribution and access to public services and recreation facilities. In order to maintain the sense of community, local events that represent traditional culture and heritage should be emphasized. Event organizers can do marketing to expand the awareness of the events in target markets but should keep the authentic forms of the events rather than adjust them to accommodate to tourists. And the scale of tourism needs to be controlled because excessive development can lead to decrease of resident involvement and drop of community sense (Allen et al., 1998). The change of residents' attitude toward community affairs and tourism growth need to be monitored to find out the threshold of visitor number. Growth needs to be slowed down when community sense began to drop. Gartner's (2004) study showed how excessive tourism growth turned a rural community into an urban center and removed totally the original community identity.

USA society is giving increasing importance to natural preservation, especially rural communities who are proud of their superior natural living environments. And degrading of environment has been recognized as a common problem of many tourism destinations that developed based on natural resources. Allen et al. (1998) suggested that keeping tourism development within carrying capacity is the key to environment preservation. Many tourism destinations charged a fee for operating at naturally sensitive places and control the geographical scope of tourist activities. The fee will be invested into the preservation work such as research, waste cleaning, wild life saving, etc. However, develop tourism within natural carrying capacity is still the most basic requirement because the influence of vehicle emission and sewage is difficult to control under current technology. Additionally, it is the most effective way to minimize noise, traffic congestion, littering and crimes brought by tourism. Meanwhile, the carrying capacity can be expanded through improvement of infrastructure and transportation system and increase of public services such as police, health care and cleaning.

As suggested by Lane (1994), one of the characteristics of rural tourism is small in scale and slow in pace. Therefore, in keeping the authentic form of rural tourism, the developers should not pursue rapid growth of tourist number or large scale of construction. For many rural communities in USA, they may be facing a pressure of economic diversification because of the declination of agriculture and mining. However, they are not suffering with very low quality of life. In other words, they are satisfied with current lifestyle and do not expect significant change of the social landscape because of tourism. Rural tourism should grow slowly and organically, be largely controlled locally and developed for the long-term good of the area (Lane, 1994).

Enhancing local economy is a fundamental motive of rural tourism development. In order to improve residents' subjective well-being, developers should ensure that individual resident benefits from visitor spending. One critical thing is to ensure that increased employment goes directly to local people and the salary should be at least equivalent with that of traditional sectors. And local people should have priority in purchasing the commercial properties at low prices for running small businesses before tourism starts to grow. Tourism growth can increase local commercial activities and in turn increase property prices. And general local residents should be the first to enjoy this benefit instead of suffering from the higher cost of living and running business.

Community pride nowadays is an essential element of resident's life satisfaction. Community pride has positive influence on resident's willingness to live in the current community. Therefore, tourism development should aims at enhancing resident's community pride. Community pride comes from the recognition of local residents and outsiders on the tradition, heritage, spirit, values and way of life of the community. Local resident's community pride can increase if they perceive that tourists strongly recognize and appreciate their life. For example, developers can promote the glorious stories of the community to tourists by virtue of famous characters, historical events and amazing artworks. At the same time, local government can educate local residents why they should be proud of the community and share with them how tourists appreciate the merits of this community.

Improving the Subjective Well-being of Chinese Tourists
Because a satisfied tourism experience is connected with the overall life satisfaction including subjective well-being (Neal, Uysal & Sirgy, 2007), it is critical to understand the motivation of Chinese outbound tourists who choose rural destinations in order to provide them an experience that satisfies the motives. And because the motivation of visiting a rural destination is often related to the pursuit of better quality of life, particularly through the aspects of physical and mental well-being, it is important to understand the current situation of Chinese tourists' QOL and what do they want from tourism to improve their QOL.

Li, Xu and Weaver (2009) revealed six underling motives of Chinese tourists to US: relaxation/escape, prestige, knowledge, job fulfillment, entertainment, and novelty. The motives of relaxation, escape, knowledge and novelty are consistent with the prior rural tourism motivation identified in many researches (e.g., Cai & Li, 2009; Dong et al., 2013; Pesonen & Komppula, 2010; Urry, 2002). The QOL issue of urban China has become an important push factor for outbound travel. Rapid industrialization and urbanization caused a series of problems that negatively affect urban Chinese resident's quality of life. Many Chinese tourists reported that they are impressed with the cleanness, beautiful natural environment, social order, happy life, friendliness and safety of outbound destinations such as USA, Japan, and Germany (e.g., Kim, Guo & Agrusa, 2005; Li & Stepchenkova, 2011). In addition, tourists in general perceive that tourism can affect their QOL through the aspects of health, emotional well-being, social relation and knowledge (Genc, 2012).

Based on the analysis of US rural tourism, China rural tourism, and China outbound tourists, I identify that the factors that improve US rural residents' subjective well-being are also applicable to Chinese tourists' subjective well-being. The natural and cultural landscape of US rural destinations is contrasting to urban areas in China as well as to rural areas in China. Therefore, keeping the authentic form of US rural life can satisfy the needs for novel experience, for learning unique culture and heritage, and for escaping. To fulfill this goal, I suggest that rural tourism programs targeting Chinese tourists should provide more opportunities for tourists to immerse in the daily life of a typical US rural resident and to learn the traditions and routines of US rural communities. Activities include attending events that most representative for the community heritage, visiting local farms or vintage, tasting home-made cuisine, staying at Bed & Breakfast, and even participate in farming and food preparing activities.

Natural preservation is critical to subjective well-being of Chinese tourists as this is a main difference between US rural areas and most parts of China urban areas. Moreover, many parts of rural areas in China have been polluted due to the industrialization. Many Chinese tourists travel outbound for health related reasons and many have heard about the clean environment of some countries. Therefore, experiencing the natural preservation work in US seems particularly precious to Chinese tourists. In addition to that the beautiful and clean natural environment itself can improve people's subjective physical well-being, the difference of natural environment between home and destination can make tourists feel proud of taking this trip.

Controlling the growth of tourism and keep tourism at small scale can also improve Chinese tourists' satisfaction. The problems brought by large scale tourism such as noise, traffic congestion, pollution, littering and crimes not just bother local people but also negatively affect tourist experience. These problems are serious in many popular destinations in China. It is not uncommon to observe over crowded streets at attractions during the peak seasons in China. Comparing to the popular destinations in China, US rural destinations have much fewer tourists and much larger open space. This is a critical factor to tourist satisfaction, especially for those who seek simplicity and relaxation. Therefore, taking Chinese tourists to experience the small scale rural tourism development will improve their satisfaction with the tour experience and in turn the overall subjective well-being.

"The idea of this article comes from my PhD qualification examination process. The issue addressed in the article was enlighted by my chair advisor Dr. Liping Cai."