Why tourism economists should treat resident well-being more seriously

Abstract

Recognising that well-being is a primary policy objective, tourism economics must incorporate resident well-being outcomes into conceptual analysis, empirical findings and policy assessment in a more inclusive way. Use of a well-being lens allows the research effort in tourism economics to convert tourism development impacts into resident well-being outcomes and better align with the broader Beyond GDP research agenda to measure societal progress. Several areas of tourism research are identified where determination of well-being outcomes can enrich economic analysis and its input into policymaking. This requires new concepts and new systems of measurement to support tourism policymaking with tourism economists expected to play an important role in the research effort.

Sustainable Development of Tourism: Research and Policy Challenges

“…In several papers [30,[36][37][38][39][40], Dwyer has argued that a set of well-being indicators can be employed to act as a "lens" to convert destination performance indicators into resident well-being outcomes, present and future. On this approach, well-being outcomes do not merely complement key performance indicators, but instead form the ultimate assessment criteria for estimating the level of progress associated with tourism development.…”

“…This implies that the ultimate goal of social policy, including tourism policy, should be to achieve human well-being [26,27]. Human well-being covers the full range of economic, social and environmental factors that affect individual and social quality of life [19,[28][29][30]. A second challenge involves formulating the particular concept of "well-being" used in analysis and policy-making to achieve sustainable tourism development.…”

“…Tourism research has estimated subjective measures of resident well-being in various development studies [28,29]. However, objective, as well as subjective measures are required if the analyst is to capture those broader aspects of resident well-being necessary to better formulate policy to achieve sustainable development [30]. Determining the sustainability of alternative development policies requires that tourism researchers go beyond subjective estimates of resident well-being outcomes.…”

“…Weak sustainability allows full substitutability between capital stocks, whereas strong sustainability argues that the need to maintain critical thresholds of some stocks (particularly natural capital) necessary for human well-being and even human existence itself [35]. Tourism research displays very little awareness of the relevance of this distinction to the sustainable development process [30].…”

“…Since well-being outcomes provide more comprehensive information for tourism decisionmaking than standard key performance indicators of the impacts of growth, the question arises as how standard impact measures may be converted to well-being outcomes [30,[36][37][38][39][40]. A fifth challenge thus concerns the role of well-being measures in tourism policy formulation, implementation, and assessment.…”