What is it about?
This book chapter proposes to reflect on destination well-being as an overarching goal for destination development. The authors view destination well-being as the quality of life (QoL) of everyone involved, distinguishing residents, tourism workers, and tourists. The chapter starts with discussing the research undertaken so far on the interactions among these groups and with the natural environment. Several research gaps are identified, which are elements of a new research agenda on well-being in tourism destinations: 1) the well-being of tourism workers; 2) the feedback of the environment on everyone; and 3) the differentiation of the groups according to their involvement in tourism, exposure to tourism, and scope for interaction with tourists. The implications of setting destination well-being as an overarching goal for destination governance are discussed. These include a re-territorialization of the strategy and a shift of strategic ownership of destination well-being from the Destination Management and Marketing Organizations (DMOs) to the local political institutions.
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Why is it important?
This book chapter explores the interactions between the main stakeholder groups in tourism destinations - local residents, people working in tourism, and visitors - and how these interactions influence the well-being of each of these groups. This is important, as tourism development in the majority of traditional tourism destinations is still focusing on the goal of maximizing economic value (Dredge, 2016) for a few selected stakeholders. For example, this is the case when tourism destination stakeholders try to maximize tourist arrivals and overnight stays. Importantly, this book chapter proposes a model of destination well-being that integrates the main stakeholder groups, which are embedded in the natural environment: Interaction 1: Tourists — Natural Environment Interaction 2: Residents — Natural Environment Interaction 3: Tourism Workers — Natural Environment Interaction 4: Tourism Workers — Tourists Interaction 5: Tourists — Residents Interaction 6: Residents — Tourism Workers Interaction 7: Well-being of all 3 groups embedded in the Natural Environment (''Destination Well-being'') Hence, this book chapter offers an alternative approach to the commonplace Destination Management and Marketing Organization (DMO) driven tourism development, proposing well-being for everyone involved as an overall objective of tourism policy at the destination level.
Perspectives
It was a great pleasure to write this book chapter on well-being for everyone involved in tourism destinations for the ''Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research II: Enhancing the Lives of Tourists, Residents of Host Communities and Service Providers'', which is edited by esteemed experts on Quality of Life (QoL) in tourism, Prof. Muzzaffer Uysal and Prof. M. Joseph Sirgy. Our aim and hope with this book chapter is that local policy makers (not the Destination Management and Marketing Organizations) in every tourism destination will co-create a destination well-being agenda in an inclusive process with different stakeholder groups. In their efforts, they should answer the questions 1) which kind(s) of tourism community members are willing to host in their destination, and 2) how tourism in the destination can contribute to the well-being of local residents, people working in tourism, tourists, and the natural environment. The progress on destination well-being should be measured by independent researchers, who report the results to the local authorities for informed policy making on destination well-being.
Dr. Eva Vroegop
Fondazione Campus, Lucca, Italy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Well-being for Everyone Involved in Tourism: An Invitation to Create a Destination Well-being Agenda, January 2023, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-31513-8_7.
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