The Effect of the Legatum Happiness Indicators on Development of International Tourism

The tourism industry is one of the main pillars of the economy of developed countries, which has played an important role in achieving higher economic growth and creating more employment. On the other hand, increasing the happiness of the people of the host country and strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit in them can help to better understand business opportunities and the proper reception of international tourists and create a memorable trip for them and the attractiveness of that country as Increase the tourist destination for international tourists. In this regard, the present study examines the effect of the nine indicators of happiness of the Legatum Institute on the international tourism industry in selected countries of the Mena region (North Africa and the Middle East) that often suffer from a single product economy and the development of tourism between The international community can help them get out of this situation and achieve balanced economic development. For this purpose, the research model was estimated using the panel data approach and the generalized method of moments (GMM) for the period 2007-2018, which showed that all indicators of happiness, including entrepreneurship and opportunity, economy, governance, education, Health, safety and security, personal freedom, social capital and environment with different coefficients and at different levels of confidence have a positive and significant effect on the development of international tourism in selected countries of the Mena region. Of course, the estimated coefficient of safety and security index was higher than other indicators and the estimated coefficient of education was smaller than other indicators