Sixth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

This study focuses on how policy makers can improve people’s subjective well-being through leisure activities. It examines whether or not transportation accessibility to leisure sites can improve people’s subjective well-being by increasing the frequency of primary activities (e.g. going to concerts, watching movies at theater, playing sports) and the accompanying activities (e.g. having dinner, shopping). The analysis may lead to proposals of next-generation transportation policies, and the analysis including accompanying activities is especially valuable because there are few previous studies on them. This study is in the context of research on the evaluation of transportation policies using subjective as well as objective indicators. The examination of the effect was based on psychological analyses of the data collected through an online survey. We conducted the survey in three cities (Tokyo, New York, and London) and the questionnaire includes people’s participation in primary and accompanying leisure activities, objective and subjective accessibility to leisure sites, and people’s subjective well-being. The result showed that, depending on the mode of transportation used, subjective improvements in transportation accessibility increases the frequency of primary and accompanying leisure activities, and the participants’ subjective well-being. This study suggests that urban transportation policy should include the improvement of accessibility to leisure activities as an objective, and that leisure should be arranged as integrated experiences of primary and accompanying activities.