The effect of urban tourismification on people's well-being and its policy implications: An empirical study based on city panel data of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Urban tourismification serves as a comprehensive indicator of urban modernization transformation and connotative development, as well as a strategic pivot for accelerating industry-city integration and enhancing people's well-being. Using panel data from 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2006 to 2023, this study empirically investigates the impact mechanism of urban tourismification on people's well-being by employing two-way fixed effects, mediation effect, panel threshold, and spatial Durbin models. The results indicate that: (1) Urban tourismification significantly enhances people's well-being overall, primarily through industrial structure effects and labor productivity effects. (2) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the well-being effect of tourismification is more prominent in upstream regions and intermediate-type cities, while city size exerts a negative moderating effect. Threshold regression further confirms a nonlinear characteristic of diminishing marginal benefits. (3) Spatial effects demonstrate complexity: under geographical adjacency and distance matrices, a siphon effect is observed, whereas the spillover effect is not significant under the economic-geographic nested matrix. The spatial impact of urban tourismification follows a differentiated pattern that is "suppression at short distances, enhancement at medium distances, and fluctuation at long distances" as distance varies. This study provides theoretical and empirical evidence for understanding the complex relationship between urban tourismification and people's well-being, offering policy insights for promoting high-quality regional tourism development and urban modernization transformation.