Happiness

Abstract

This chapter presents happiness from the perspective of a public good, that is, of collective character understood as the basis for the constitution of public policies in tourism. Thus, the intimate relationship between tourism, happiness, and tourism development is recognized. The reflection undertaken on public policies in tourism is based on the analysis of the capacities to generate happiness in society and on the offer of a proposition that state interventions, whether of distributive, redistributive, regulatory, or constitutional nature, under pressure from collective needs, must attend to the tourism development process and sustained in a humanistic conception. Therefore, it is believed that tourism, in its various aspects, will only achieve the happiness of a tourist destination if it meets the premises of sustainable development to the extent that the citizen residing at the tourist destination feels part of the decision-making process and the formation of public policies.