Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

the hundred happiest settlements registered overnight tourist demand, and 16 of the 71 are
involved in mainly domestic spa and health tourism.
Summary and conclusions
Keeping track of changes in the quality of life is not a task normally taken up by official
statistical data collection surveys. This is probably explained by the fact that the basic data
these studies ought to start with - namely: the question „how are you today”, or „how satisfied
are you with your life?” – will invariably give a body of information that is not exact enough
to serve as the foundation for a methodologically correct evaluation. Nevertheless, from time
to time the surveys of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office do have, as part of their
attempts to measure quality of life, a few questions pertaining to the topic.
As quality of life is a function of a great number of factors, the role played out by these has
been in the centre of interest of scientists representing various disciplines. Hungarian research
is centred upon aspects of quality of life that are related to health – we know much less about
how leisure travel, for example, contributes to the happiness of the Hungarian citizen. Within
this circle of issues, tourism research must look at how direct involvement in leisure travel
change the perceived quality of life, and to what extent living in a tourist destination does the
same.
Starting from the social indicator system, the present study aims at revealing those Hungarian
towns and villages that show the highest indicators of quality of life. Supported by the 2001
Census and the 2000 TUS survey, using an index given by mathematical-statistical methods it
presents the one hundred settlements in Hungary with the happiest citizens. Spatial
distribution of these settlements shows a geographical correlation with distinguished holiday
districts.
Acknowledgements
The survey forming the basis of this study was supported by the OTKA (K67573)
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