The aim of this research is to investigate the domestic tourism demand of urban and rural residents in China. Based on the data from the National Household Tourism Survey, we specify Chinese domestic tourism demand as a function of absolute income, relative income, domestic tourism price, and substitute price. As a major contribution of this study, relative income is measured using the distance between individual income and average income over a city/province. Based on the estimation results from multilevel models, this paper highlights the effect of relative income on domestic tourism demand in some sub-regions of China. Furthermore, regional differences between residents in different sub-regions and different patterns of determinants between urban and rural residents are identified and discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.