Keywords

Introduction

The current pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has greatly affected many lives across the world, impacting major economic sectors. Unquestionably, the tourism industry is among the most affected. While the crisis caused by COVID-19 is not over and we cannot be certain how it will evolve, we observe colossal changes in tourism sectors in many countries. As estimated by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with closed borders and travel restrictions the number of international tourist arrivals may decrease up to 78% in 2020 as compared to the previous year (UNWTO, 2020) leading to unprecedented consequences for the industry. In times of prolonged health crises like this, the question of wellbeing and quality of life (QoL) for all stakeholders involved in tourism becomes highly relevant. Indeed, for a long time, tourism scholars and industry practitioners discussed the value of tourism strictly in terms of its monetary benefits and as a tool to boost destinations’ economies and decrease unemployment. In addition to economic advantages, the discussion turned toward investigating tourism value in terms of environmental and socio-cultural impacts on the destination and its residents (Uysal et al., 2012b). Moreover, tourism value was analysed as an advocate for eliminating poverty and promoting peace at destinations (Uysal et al., 2016; Vanegas, 2012). However, for the past two decades or so, we witness the ongoing shift of research focus from the non-economic benefits of tourism to its intangible assets. This major conceptual shift has contributed to the emergence of research directions and areas that concentrate on discovering new layers of tourism value in terms of its contributions to the wellbeing of tourists, destination residents, and industry employees.

Since its inception, QoL research in tourism has grown considerably, embracing many aspects of tourism and hospitality. One of the most comprehensive works relating to the topic is the Handbook of Tourism and Quality of Life Research: Enhancing the Lives of Tourists and Residents of Host Communities, edited by Uysal et al. (2012a). The book provides an extensive discussion on QoL issues and tourism experiences and explores the potency of tourism to improve the wellbeing of those involved in tourism production and consumption. Other book examples, which cover some aspects of quality of life and wellbeing include:

  • Quality of Life Community Indicators for Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management by Budruk and Phillips (2011)

  • Health, Tourism and Hospitality: Spas, Wellness and Medical Travel by Smith and Puczkó (2014)

  • The Routledge Handbook of Health Tourism by Smith and Puczkó (2016)

  • Sustainable Island Tourism: Competitiveness, and Quality of Life by Modica and Uysal (2016)

  • Co-Creation and Wellbeing in Tourism by Correia et al. (2017)

  • Managing Quality of Life in Tourism and Hospitality by Uysal et al. (2018), and

  • Best Practices in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management: A Quality of Life Perspective by Campón-Cerro et al. (2018).

The variety of topics covered by these works highlights the significance of QoL research in both tourism and hospitality. Nonetheless, despite the expanding number of studies, many unanswered questions remain. By origin, social indicators research is directed toward investigating what factors constitute one’s wellbeing and how it can be further enhanced. As past QoL and wellbeing research in tourism indicates, the major challenge is how to successfully develop destinations in an environmentally and socially sustainable way, and at the same time improve the quality of life of industry employees, residents, and tourists. The pandemic has further exacerbated this issue. This will require a concerted effort from both academicians and practitioners in reviving the industry with a focus on the quality of life. Thus, the objective of this chapter is twofold: (1) to review the relevant literature on quality of life and wellbeing in a tourism context and (2) to discuss potential implications of COVID-19 on QoL research and offer some future research directions.

Review of Literature and Theoretical Frameworks

The QoL and wellbeing research in tourism has built upon the social indicators research that in the 1960–70s pointed to the necessity of recognising the multidimensional nature of wellbeing. The pioneers of the social indicators movement noted that economic indicators only, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or income, are inadequate measures of one’s wellbeing and argued that social indexes have to be taken into consideration as well (Land & Michalos, 2018). This new movement prompted interest in quality of life research in many disciplines, including tourism, and contributed to the development of many composite indicators to monitor and manage the quality of life. The multifaceted nature of the QoL concept makes it rather hard to define. It embraces several aspects of an individual’s life, including objective economic, socio-cultural, and environmental conditions aided by subjective evaluations of one’s wellbeing (Jiang et al., 2018; Sirgy, 2012). Figure 1 reflects the multifaceted nature of the concept. The objective indicators of QoL encompass measures capturing several dimensions: economy (e.g., gross income), education (e.g., adult literacy rate), health (e.g., life-expectancy), environment (e.g., CO2 emissions), safety and security (e.g., number of road accidents), culture and leisure (e.g., number of theatres and museums). The subjective indicators of QoL are psychological in nature and include perceived QoL, happiness, and life satisfaction (Diener & Suh, 1997; Sirgy, 2002; Uysal et al., 2016).

Fig. 1
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QoL dimensions

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The rapid evolvement of this novel research stream generated many scholarly works focusing on key stakeholders of tourism, namely, residents, tourists, and industry employees. Moreover, academics continuously apply new theoretical frameworks to explore the links between QoL and tourism. As Sirgy (2019) notes, the theoretical basis of QoL and wellbeing research in tourism is primarily dominated by the discipline of psychology (see Part III Wellbeing: Health Psychology, Positive Psychology, and the Tourist). There are three main perspectives on wellbeing that form the basis of QoL research: hedonic wellbeing (i.e., psychological happiness), life satisfaction (i.e., prudential happiness), and eudaimonia (i.e., perfectionist happiness) (Sirgy, 2019; Sirgy & Uysal, 2016). One of the most prevalent theoretical frameworks in QoL tourism research is the bottom-up spillover theory (see Fig. 2) (Sirgy, 2019). The theory posits that satisfaction with various life domains, including satisfaction with tourism experiences, spills over to overall life satisfaction. In other words, the affect within a life domain spills over vertically to the most superordinate domain (life in general), thus influencing life satisfaction. A good example is a study by Neal et al. (1999) that provides empirical support to the theoretical connection between satisfaction with travel/tourism experiences and satisfaction with life in general. An extensive survey of 815 consumers of travel/tourism services suggested that indeed satisfaction with tourism experiences has a direct positive effect on respondents’ overall life satisfaction.

Fig. 2
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Bottom-up spillover theory of life satisfaction. (Source: Neal et al., 1999)

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Another prominent theory is the need hierarchy theory (Sirgy & Uysal, 2016). The idea behind this framework is that overall quality of life is reflected by satisfaction with human development needs, of both basic (e.g., health, safety) and growth (e.g., self-actualisation, esteem) nature (Sirgy, 2019; Sirgy & Uysal, 2016). Drawing on the need hierarchy theory, Lee et al. (2014) validated the customer wellbeing index as it pertains to natural wildlife tourism. Specifically, the authors found that satisfaction with both basic and growth needs positively affects customer loyalty and leads to favourable behavioral outcomes (e.g., increased length of stay, total spending, and frequency of visits). Grounded in the need hierarchy theory, novel concepts and variables were introduced to the QoL research, including the development of quality of work life scale (Sirgy et al., 2001). The quality of work life scale includes dimensions such as satisfaction with economic and family, health and safety, esteem, actualisation, social, knowledge, and aesthetics needs and recognises the importance of tourism and hospitality workers being happy in their jobs.

Similar theoretical premises lie in the centre of the leisure benefits theory developed by Sirgy et al. (2017). The theory postulates that leisure activities positively contribute to subjective wellbeing by fulfilling certain basic and growth needs. These effects are intensified if the benefits from leisure activities correspond with certain personality traits. Currently, several novel theoretical perspectives focusing on the integration of emotions and QoL are employed by scholars; for example, the theory of emotional solidarity. Originally developed by Emile Durkheim (1915/1995) to explain the emotional bonds in religious groups, the theory of emotional solidarity was expanded to relations between tourists and residents by Woosnam (2011) and recently was used to explain the emotional wellbeing of residents as a result of social interactions with visitors (Wang et al., 2020). The study by Wang et al. (2020) confirmed that higher levels of residents’ emotional solidarity expressed through dimensions of welcoming nature, emotional closeness, and sympathetic understanding toward tourists lead to higher levels of residents’ emotional wellbeing.

As mentioned above, the three perspectives on QoL and wellbeing research in tourism include how production and consumption of tourism activities influence the wellbeing of tourists (e.g., Kim et al., 2015), destination residents (e.g., Alonso & Nyanjom, 2016), and industry employees (e.g., Kara et al., 2013). It should be noted that these studies focus on either objective quality of life measures or subjective indicators. Table 1 presents an overview of selected studies that explore both of these directions.

Table 1 QoL and tourism research
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QoL and Tourism from the Perspective of Destination Residents

Academics and industry representatives have long been interested in how tourism may impact destinations and thus, the various effects of tourism development have been researched extensively. The discussion on tourism development is closely related to the topics of perceived impacts of tourism and support for tourism development from local communities (e.g., Diedrich & García-Buades, 2009; Ko & Stewart, 2002). While evolving through the stages of exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, decline, and rejuvenation, along with the changes in the number of arrivals and receipts, tourism development in the destination is reflected by the changes in residents’ attitudes and perceptions of tourism in the destination (Butler, 1980; Uysal, Woo, & Singal, 2012). However, tourism affects not only the residents’ attitudes and perceptions of tourism development but also their overall wellbeing (Uysal et al., 2016). The analysis of how tourism manifests in different QoL domains is an important source of information that guides planning processes for destination management organisations and policymakers.

The research relating to tourism impacts on the residents’ QoL has focused on both objective (e.g., Fu et al., 2020; Meng et al., 2010; Perdue & Gustke, 1991; Ridderstaat et al., 2016; Urtasun & Gutiérrez, 2006) and subjective evaluations of wellbeing (e.g., Andereck & Nyaupane, 2011; Chen et al., 2020; Ouyang et al., 2019; Woo et al., 2015). One of the first studies that investigated the impact of tourism development on objective QoL indicators was by Perdue and Gustke (1991). Their results demonstrated that certain objective measures, namely housing quality and education expenditure were significantly associated with higher levels of tourism development, while for instance, per capita income was found to have a weak relationship (Perdue & Gustke, 1991). Similarly, studies by Urtasun and Gutiérrez (2006) and Meng et al. (2010) investigated the link between tourism and QoL using objective measures. In contrast to Perdue and Gustke (1991), Urtasun and Gutiérrez (2006) found a strong association between tourism development with income and quality of healthcare. Meng et al. (2010) used tourism receipts as a proxy for tourism development and discovered that it is significantly correlated with objective measures of economic, health, and education conditions in the destination. The perceived, subjective assessment of wellbeing by residents was widely employed as well. Thus, Kim et al. (2013) investigated how the stage of tourism development affects community residents’ satisfaction with certain wellbeing domains across 135 counties and cities in Virginia. The stages of tourism development were identified as introduction, growth, maturity, and decline based on four indicators: population growth rate, traveller spending growth rate, direct travel employment growth rate, and state travel tax growth rate (Kim et al., 2013). Then each destination was screened against these indicators and established to be in one of the four development stages. As their results showed, in the maturity stage, the relationships between perceived economic and social impacts and satisfaction with material and community QoL dimensions were the strongest, while the connection between cultural impacts and emotional wellbeing intensified during the initial stages of tourism development. In a later study, Woo et al. (2015) focused on the perceived value of tourism and identified a positive association with overall satisfaction with locals’ QoL. Specifically, the results indicated that if residents are affiliated with the tourism sector, i.e., they are economically dependent on tourism, then they are more likely to demonstrate stronger support for tourism development. Thus, these residents perceive tourism as economically beneficial to the community, which positively affects their sense of material wellbeing. Ouyang et al. (2019) further demonstrated the importance of analysing residents’ QoL in relation to a specific event. The study focused on the hallmark sport event—the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, which attracts runners from more than 60 countries (Ouyang et al., 2019). The findings showed that perceived QoL of community residents has a strong impact on their attitudes toward a recurring event and its significance is increasing over time.

In general, the research on QoL and tourism from the perspective of residents indicates that tourism can affect residents’ wellbeing both positively and negatively. The reviewed studies showed that the positive tourism impacts including economic, socio-cultural, and environmental aspects enhance community residents’ QoL, while the negative ones may reduce QoL. The magnitude of these effects may differ across residents. As research indicates, residents who are affiliated with the tourism industry and benefit from it directly, show more support for tourism development and report higher levels of QoL. The residents’ attitudes toward tourism and their levels of various OoL dimensions may also vary according to the stages of tourism development in the destination. In summary, the rich findings of QoL literature concerning community residents demonstrate that the prevalence of positive impacts contributes to further support of tourism from the community. Therefore, destination management organisations and policymakers should aim to provide quality tourism experiences while sustaining favourable wellbeing levels of community residents.

QoL and Tourism from the Perspective of Tourists

Tourism experience is at the centre of the tourism industry. The interest of researchers and practitioners for a long time focused on how tourism experiences may influence the behavioural intentions of consumers. Such knowledge was utilised in developing marketing strategies to “sell” the destination and to attract new and repeat visitors. Nonetheless, the extensive QoL literature has demonstrated that satisfaction with tourism experiences may have a significant effect on tourists’ overall satisfaction with life (e.g., Backer, 2019; Eusébio & Carneiro, 2014; Farkić et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2015; Wei & Milman, 2002). One of the first studies that investigated this relationship was the work of Neal et al. (1999). Guided by the bottom-up spillover theory, the study analysed whether satisfaction with leisure services provided through the consumer journey would lead to satisfaction with life in general. Their findings indicated that satisfaction with leisure services and satisfaction with a general trip experience had a direct positive impact on overall life satisfaction. Additionally, the study revealed the mediating effects of trip reflections such as involvement, arousal, mastery, perceived freedom, and spontaneity on the link between tourism services and satisfaction with life. However, some studies did not confirm significant contributions of vacations to perceived life satisfaction. The study from Michalkó et al. (2009) asked respondents to assess the importance of travelling in their lives. Based on a survey of 11,500 Hungarians, it was discovered that travelling does not play an important role in the participants’ life. Furthermore, tourism mobility was found to have no effect on general satisfaction with life, indicating that the setting may also yield different results and the context in which research is conducted would show variation.

Some studies attempted to establish the effect of vacations on one’s subjective wellbeing by comparing several groups (Gilbert & Abdullah, 2004; Nawijn et al., 2010). Thus, Gilbert and Abdullah (2004) noted that participants in a holiday group report higher levels of wellbeing pre- and post-travel when compared to those in a non-holiday group. Despite the small effect size, the authors concluded that participating in travel activities positively contributes to tourists’ sense of wellbeing (Gilbert & Abdullah, 2004). In a later study, Nawijn et al. (2010) examined the link between tourism experiences and QoL among 1530 individuals. Their findings confirmed that vacationers, compared to non-vacationers, demonstrate a higher degree of happiness pre-trip, while post-trip levels of happiness did not differ between the two groups (Nawijn et al., 2010). Additionally, research relating to QoL from the perspective of tourists demonstrated that travel experiences can contribute to perceived satisfaction with various life domains. Thus, Sirgy et al. (2011) in their study established that negative and positive affects that stem from travel activities have an impact on satisfaction with 13 different life domains (e.g., family life, social life, leisure life, financial life, health, and safety) and consequently, overall life satisfaction. While the authors confirmed that travelling positively affects various life domains, the strength of the effect varied. Thus, positive affect from the travelling experience significantly contributed to satisfaction with work life, social life, leisure life, love life, family life, arts and culture, spiritual life, intellectual life, and travel life, but not with the health and safety, and self domains.

A new line of research is currently evolving within QoL and tourism research, namely designing for quality of life. Considering the importance of enhancing the wellbeing of tourists, contemporary studies focus on designing the tourism experiences that enrich one’s wellbeing (e.g., Farkić et al., 2020; Vogt et al., 2020). Designing for quality of life follows certain principles including a successful integration of destinations’ physical attributes with intangible assets such as knowledge and skills of tourists and employees to ensure quality tourism experience (Uysal et al., 2020). For instance, Farkić et al. (2020) showed that immersive, slow adventure guided experiences positively contribute to tourists’ psychological wellbeing. The semi-structured interviews conducted by the authors revealed that slow guided experiences such as foraging, canoeing, and stargazing contribute to creating a sense of togetherness and meaningful moments among tourists (Farkić et al., 2020).

In summary, previous research has provided extensive evidence that tourism/travel activities contribute not only to satisfaction with the leisure life domain but also positively affect the overall QoL of tourists. The vacation experiences can have both short- and long-term effects on life satisfaction (Uysal et al., 2016). Interestingly, the anticipation of the trip can heighten the sense of happiness as much as the actual trip. For example, Gilbert and Abdullah (2004) determined that their holiday taking group showed higher levels of wellbeing before and after the trip, suggesting that planning and waiting for the vacation equally impacts tourists’ sense of wellbeing.

QoL and Tourism from the Perspective of Industry Employees

The concept of QoL was widely and successfully employed to study the impact of the workplace on employees’ wellbeing in hospitality and tourism firms (e.g., Wan & Chan, 2013). To assess one’s satisfaction with the job, a quality of work life (QWL) scale, covering seven dimensions, was developed by Sirgy et al. (2001). The QWL scale measures whether the firm’s work conditions positively contribute to employees’ perceived satisfaction with work and non-work life domains, including satisfaction with economic and family, health and safety, esteem, actualisation, social, knowledge, and aesthetics needs and overall life satisfaction through meeting their basic and growth needs (Uysal & Sirgy, 2019). Kara et al. (2013) tested the effect of different leadership styles on 443 hotel employees’ QWL. The results confirmed that, when compared to the transactional approach (i.e., promoting interest-based relationships between employees and managers), transformational leadership (i.e., promoting leading by example) is more efficient in contributing to employees’ organisational commitment and increases QWL and overall life satisfaction. The findings from another study (Kara et al., 2018) further showed how managers’ mobbing behaviour, expressed in emotional abuse and psychological violence, negatively affects the QWL of female employees and their QoL in general. Recently, Kim et al. (2017) and Kim et al. (2018) investigated the effects of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on hotel employees’ QWL. Their results demonstrated that employees’ perceptions of CSR positively impact both QWL and workers’ organisational commitment. Moreover, the economic and philanthropic facets of CSR were found to have significant positive effects on QWL and overall wellbeing. These findings further reiterate the importance of creating favourable workplace conditions for tourism and hospitality employees as QWL consequently may have a significant effect on overall life satisfaction. Additionally, the QWL research demonstrates that certain values that companies adhere to in their work, influence employees’ commitment to the organisation.

The topic of QoL and wellbeing in tourism is continuously attracting academic attention. Past studies relating to QoL and wellbeing in tourism show that indeed tourism activities go beyond the traditionally recognised impacts on the economy of the destination or loyalty of visitors, expressed in behavioural intentions to return and recommend. Tourism is capable of impacting the quality of life of everyone involved in the fully functioning tourism system. This novel ultimate outcome variable that came into tourism and hospitality research identified many other facets of tourism value that were not discussed by either academic or industry representatives before.

QoL Perspective and Approaches

The QoL perspective and approaches benefit all the stakeholders of the fully functioning tourism system. The nature of tourism research for practical reasons embodies the interlays of such constructs as sustainability, destination competitiveness, and the QoL of stakeholders as they are impacted by tourism development and activities. The implicit assumption is that tourism provides significant benefits (tangible and intangible) to its stakeholders (Uysal et al., 2012b). The extent to which stakeholders benefit varies, depending on the level of destination lifecycle and its infrastructure development policies. The box below presents one destination’s economic policy around QoL.

Vienna Tourist Board’s Visitor Economy Strategy 2025

In 2019 the Vienna Tourist Board developed their Visitor Economy Strategy 2025, in the centre of which is the quality of life of visitors and locals. The strategy focuses on sustainable tourism development, taking into account the needs of tourists and city residents. In their vision, the Vienna Tourist Board indicates that the purpose of the visitor economy is to add value in the form of business-added-value for the firms, and city-added-value for the residents and city itself. As the strategy outlines, the major components of QoL of tourists and community are the quality of the place and quality of the experience (see Fig. 3). Thus, to ensure the sustainable development of the destination, the Vienna Tourist Board identifies QoL of residents and tourists as key performance indicators along with the value added and overnight revenues. The basis for achieving the strategic objectives is a combination of innovation, smart solutions, and the efficient resource configuration. This requires close cooperation of the so-called ecosystem of companies and organisations that operate within the city. In implementing the defined strategy, the Board and other tourism stakeholders follow the principles of inclusion, premium quality of provided experiences, and digital humanism approach. The application of digital data ensures successful monitoring of the impacts of tourism activities on visitors and locals. Source: Vienna Tourist Board, 2019.

Fig. 3
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Viennese strategy diamond. (Source: Vienna Tourist Board (2019), used with permission)

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The QoL research and concerns always juxtapose with the attitudes of stakeholders of the place as a destination (e.g., Andereck & Nyaupane, 2011; Kim et al., 2013). From the perspective of host community residents, we need to have QoL research concentrating on living conditions and how these living conditions impact their QoL. The value of tourism needs to maintain a focus both on the tourists as well as local communities as stakeholders. For example, Kim et al. (2013) linked community residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts (economic, social, cultural, and environmental) with residents’ satisfaction with particular life domains (material wellbeing, community wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, and health and safety wellbeing) and overall life satisfaction. The study found that the strength of these perceptual relationships is moderated by the stage of tourism development in the community. As the destination moves into a stagnation or decline phase of development, it is expected that there would be some deterioration to the life quality of residents, which may then result in less support for tourism development (Uysal, Woo, & Singal, 2012). Similarly, a growth phase would be perceived to improve the wellbeing of residents in the destination community, leading to good support for further tourism development. A study like this is essential for developing effective tourism policies and gaining support from other stakeholders in further developing tourism activities. Residents are a major stakeholder in tourism and their wellbeing is important. The extent to which a new project impinges on the wellbeing of residents, whether they are directly or indirectly involved in tourism, is of immense value to having a sustainable tourism development and developing appropriate policies.

Designing for QoL

How destinations stage and design for tourism affects the nature of experience outcomes. Uysal et al. (2020) argue that designing for tourism is intimately related to the enhancement of quality of life; that is, designing appropriate platforms for tourism experience settings with its stakeholders will contribute not only to the wellbeing of participants but also improve the liveability of places as destinations. Designing for a quality experience to improve the wellbeing of stakeholders in the production and consumption of tourism engagement should follow a systems approach incorporating both the demand and supply sides of tourism. A prominent example of designing a place to enhance QoL is Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich is not only a popular tourism destination, but it has also been recognised for several years as a city with the best quality of life. Zurich Tourism Organization points out that the tourism development in the city follows the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability. The city aims to become a smart destination by actively implementing and promoting sustainability initiatives within the city that are aimed at reducing the negative effects of tourism and maintain the residents’ QoL.

Source: Zurich Tourism (2020).

It is prudent that tourism enterprises promote the notion of work-life balance and have measures in place that can enhance the wellbeing of employees and service providers. By doing so, service providers as employees can deliver quality service in all aspects of the production and consumption of goods and services at the destination. Unhappy service providers cannot provide a quality experience, nor can they deliver quality services, which in turn negatively affects both management (e.g., retention, low turnover) and personnel outcome variables (e.g., loyalty, higher satisfaction, commitment). Within the realm of tourism activities, the challenge is to link the “non-economic value” of what we produce to performance measures (such as average daily rate, revenue per available room, productivity ratios) and appropriate sustainable indicators. The non-economic value of tourism could have the long-term potential to contribute to the image of the tourism enterprise, thus, to its intangible assets and share price. Clearly, the development of QoL performance measures linked to personal and management outcome indicators would be effective in monitoring activities and creating efficiency.

Employees’ Wellbeing

A unique study by Kirillova et al. (2020) examined the existence of the link between employees’ sense of wellbeing and hotel design aesthetics. The study, involving 525 operational-level hotel employees in the USA, revealed that depending on where one works in the hotel, employee wellbeing is likely to vary. For example, the study found that backstage employees experience less aesthetic pleasure and report a lower level of wellbeing than those employees who work frontstage. It is clear that design characteristics, such as unity (i.e., visual coherence among design elements) and variety, may influence employees’ sense of wellbeing. The challenge is then how a hotel can be designed to further enhance employees’ sense of wellbeing. Examining the role of design in hotels in improving not only employee wellbeing but also customer wellbeing is of immense value with financial implications.

Most of the studies included in this chapter along with their approaches to QoL highlight the promise that the tourism enterprise can enhance the wellbeing of different stakeholders and this can be accomplished directly or indirectly. There is still ample opportunity to further generate knowledge on how QoL research is applied in different tourism settings. It is also important to emphasise that we as researchers are further challenged to monitor change over time by developing appropriate QoL and sustainability indicators reflective of today’s marketplace as well as tomorrow’s needs for a given place, product, target, and goal (Uysal et al., 2018).

What to Glean from Previous Research

It is evident that we have seen tremendous growth in scholarly work of wellbeing and quality of life research as it relates to tourism settings in the past two decades or so and this stream of research will continue to grow in the years to come. A closer examination of the extant literature on the topic reveals several issues that are worthwhile to mention.

  1. 1.

    Regardless of the unit of analysis, whether it is an individual as a consumer, employees of tourism goods and services, or residents of destinations, studies have utilised different approaches and theoretical underpinnings depending on the perspective of disciplinary representations such as economics, psychology, sociology, or consumer behaviour. This implies and is also seen from the preceding discussions that the study of wellbeing—quality of life cuts across and intersects with any field or disciplinary approach within a contextualised tourism setting.

  2. 2.

    Different life domains relevant to tourism settings such as leisure life domain, family life domain, work life domain, and the like are related to overall satisfaction with life, meaning that wellbeing and satisfaction with life in general are the outcome variables or operationalised as the ultimate outcome variables. In this regard, studies usually attempt to understand the effects of some possible antecedents and attitudinal variables unique to tourism behaviours to explain satisfaction with life in general. We believe that this type of modelling or approach, grounded in the theory of planned behaviour which links beliefs to behaviour, will continue to be relevant for tourism—consumer behaviour research. The functionality of this is that the three core components of the theory, namely; attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control are being linked to wellbeing outcome variables and then via this connection, we will be in a better position to explain, say, an individual’s behavioural intentions.

  3. 3.

    We see limited research that has used quality of life measures as antecedent or as mediating and/or moderating variables. There is ample opportunity here for researchers to explore the interplays of quality of life indicators in explaining performance indicators. The assumed connection between wellbeing—quality of life indicators and destination performance measures or sustainability indicators is yet to be fully developed and empirically substantiated.

  4. 4.

    Most of the reviewed studies in this chapter and elsewhere utilise subjective measures of wellbeing and quality of life at the individual or community level. We have very limited research that utilises objective indicators and these studies tend to use indicators that are quantifiable and represent mostly macro or aggregated information. Both types of indicators of wellbeing and quality of life are important for different reasons and we will continue to see these streams of research with different variants in the years to come. At the same time, we argue that if and where possible both subjective and objective quality of life indicators should be brought into the same research setting and examined simultaneously. For destinations as places, we as researchers should strive to develop both subjective and objective indicators to monitor changes over time.

  5. 5.

    Most of the studies that use subjective quality of life measures seem to have cross-sectional data, that is, researchers generate data at one point in time. For policy and monitoring reasons, it is prudent that we generate longitudinal data to understand how quality of life measures may change as destinations go through structural changes over time. By the same token, we need to monitor the objective quality of life indicators over time. However, almost all objective indicators of quality of life are time-series data. By conducting longitudinal studies of subjective indicators would allow researchers to indirectly delineate the perceived importance of objective quality of life indicators. In a way, behavioural changes or responses would reflect how well a given destination may have done or performed over time regarding its objective quality of life indicators.

  6. 6.

    A closer examination of quality of life research in tourism reveals that most of the reported empirical studies using subjective quality of life measures utilised structural equation modelling (SEM) or path analysis to examine behavioural variables in relation to wellbeing or satisfaction with life as a way of measuring quality of life. Some used correlation analysis and regression analysis to explain the amount of variance in wellbeing measures as a function of a set of independent variables with some co-variates. Some other studies combined a multitude of statistical techniques including logit regression, ANOVA, or multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to analyse the objective quality of life measures in different research settings. The use of statistical techniques appears to be a function of the main focus of the study and the nature of quality of life indicators within the context of a given study.

Conclusion

In the past two decades, the links between tourism and quality of life have been extensively researched. As noted by Uysal et al. (2016) the very notion of QoL is embedded in tourism definition, as an activity to pursue leisure and recreation. In this chapter, we attempted to summarise the relevant literature relating to QoL in tourism by discussing the three major perspectives within this research stream, namely QoL and destination residents, QoL and tourists, and QoL and industry employees. We further delineated some examples in implementing QoL practices, aimed at enhancing the wellbeing and QoL of all tourism stakeholders. The scope of QoL research in tourism is not simply limited to these three perspectives. Residents, visitors, and employees as service providers are key stakeholders in any destination whether it is a city, built attraction or micro states such as island destinations, each requiring a context-based approach to QoL issues.

As cities become cultural centres and attract large numbers of visitors, they may experience environmental degradation, congestion, pollution, depletion of natural resources in relation to QoL of citizens and human development. Future wellbeing research should pay more attention to structural changes in city destinations and assess empirically how these changes affect different life domains such as health, work, leisure, and spiritual life. The degree to which we assess and monitor the effect of changes on life domains unique to a given city or urban area as a destination can provide insights for establishing the connection between QoL of residents and visitors and urban sprawl. We encourage scholars to do research in this area. By the same token, micro states, small island nations because of their limited resources and unique characteristics pose challenges for managing resources efficiently and effectively. The challenge is how to sustain tourism development, remain competitive without impinging on the wellbeing of locals. For instance, Croes (2016) noted that the connection between tourism development and residents’ QoL in small island destinations requires more research and focus on non-income factors that may impact residents’ happiness. We wholeheartedly encourage researchers to further explore the interplay of sustainability, competitiveness, and QoL issues in city destinations, islands, or built environments as they are facing new challenges induced by natural disasters, environmental deterioration, and increased demand for resources.

The ongoing health crisis poses new challenges for the industry and academics. The questions of wellbeing have become very relevant. Undoubtedly, the pandemic is disruptive but at the same time, a formative phenomenon. As trite, as it sounds, this health crisis should be seen as an opportunity rather than an obstacle for the tourism industry. The pandemic offered an opportunity to reimagine the tourism experience from both the demand and supply sides. For example, Ramkissoon (2020) points out that the COVID-19 pandemic may prompt favourable behavioural changes. Thus, establishing programs that focus on pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours, following the pandemic, may lead to positive wellbeing outcomes (Ramkissoon, 2020). The challenge for those involved in the production and the consumption of tourism remains as to how to design a safe and quality experience that will contribute to the wellbeing of all stakeholders involved. As the restrictions to travel are lifted and destinations re-open, the major concern is guaranteeing safety. Before a vaccine is widely available, destination management organisations should work closely with government agencies to ensure that they follow the safety guidelines. For instance, as a part of it’s Safe Travels initiative, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) developed the Global Protocols for the New Normal to ensure a safe tourism experience. Those businesses that employ the protocols receive a Global Safety Stamp to indicate that they have implemented health and sanitation protocols (WTTC, 2020).

The creative and innovative solutions are required from all parties, including academics, to implement principles related to the quality of life in the time of the pandemic, i.e., designing the tourism experience in a way that enhances visitors’ wellbeing and at the same time contributes to residents’ and employees’ quality of life. Designing for quality of life conveys recognising the diversity of the travelling population. In this regard, the principles of accessibility and inclusion in designing a tourism experience are of great importance (Uysal et al., 2020). Destinations should ensure the physical accessibility of the tourism infrastructure and strive to design spaces where tourists and residents of various backgrounds can interact and share experiences. Therefore, further research is needed that concentrates on the designing elements of tourism experiences from both the supply and demand sides of a tourism system.

As noted above, the importance of wellbeing and QoL of tourism stakeholders increases in the times of the pandemic. The recent studies showed that the pandemic has negatively affected people’s wellbeing, intensifying the feelings of loneliness and sadness (e.g., Brodeur, 2021; Li et al., 2021). As such, the academic conversation shifted toward identifying solutions that will contribute to increasing the QoL levels of residents, tourists, and employees on the road to recovery from the crisis. For example, Li et al. (2021) examined how virtual reality tourism may impact residents’ wellbeing. The results indicated that virtual reality tourism positively affects the perceived value of the virtual experience and leads to a higher sense of subjective wellbeing. Thus, we believe future trends in both academia and the industry should be on developing adequate measures to monitor the performance of tourism stakeholders in achieving higher levels of wellbeing. This corresponds to the evolving line of research regarding the convergence of traditional performance measures and subjective or objective QoL indicators. Uysal and Sirgy (2019) present a convincing argument that quality of life indicators can also be treated as performance indicators, independently or in nested forms with conventional performance indicators. Naturally, QoL indicators need to be discussed in relation to key stakeholders, namely tourists, residents of host communities, and employees of tourism and hospitality firms. The existence of the reciprocal relationship between conventional performance measures and QoL indicators begs for more research. There is no question that QoL indicators assist not only in gauging the level of destination competitiveness but also in ensuring the sustainability of efficient and effective use of resources.