SHENZHEN, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The China Tourist Attractions Association and a research institution under the OCT Group, a leading theme park developer and operator in the country, jointly released a happiness index for tourist attractions on Monday.

The Palace Museum in Beijing ranked first among the top 100 happiest tourist attractions in 2019, followed by the Shanghai Disney Resort and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The index was compiled based on online comments of tourists who had visited the 1,181 tourist attractions sampled in the research, with their abstract emotions, feelings and experiences transformed into visualized and measurable data, according to the OCT institution.

The top 20 tourist attractions with the highest happiness indices in several sub-categories, including natural and cultural landscapes, museums, rural and idyllic sceneries as well as modern entertainment, were also released.

The index aims to help tourism practitioners better track consumer preferences and adjust their business strategies, which also offers references for tourists to choose travel destinations, the institution said.