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

the residents must be willing partners in the process and their attitudes toward tourism as the
perceptions of its impact on the community should be continuously evaluated.
Governments have the responsibility to satisfy both the expectations and desires of tourists,
and to improve the quality of life of residents. However, despite the planning efforts, the
widely recognized importance of residents’ attitudes to tourism development and the concern
about their quality of life and well-being, the residents’ perspective is often forgotten or
undervalued. Only recently, the studies of quality of life and happiness within nations have
increased but, in general, these studies have been conduct from the perspective of decisionmakers
and not from the community ones.
This study adopts the resident’s point of view by analyzing the importance of the perceived
tourism impacts in the assessment of their own quality of life, a topic insufficiently studied in
the tourism area. The study has the purpose of creating a model to analyze the relationship
between residents’ perception of tourism impacts and the perception of their own quality of
life. It is crucial to understand if residents feel tourism as important for their own quality of
life or, on contrary if they value other dimensions related with everyday life even without
tourism. This research will be based on a case study, specifically examining the perceptions of
a sample of residents of the eleven parishes of the municipality of Loulé, located in the
Algarve tourism destination.
For a better understanding of the study this paper describes the geographic study area and
characterizes generically his host community in terms of demographic, social, economical and
cultural aspects. It provides a background to the research by outlining the benefits and costs
associated to tourism development, residents’ attitudes towards tourism and some of the key
theories and concepts associated.
Study area
The Algarve, one of the most internationally well-known Portuguese destinations, is located
in the south of Portugal and it is a traditionally sun and beach destination since the 60’s and
more recently it stands out internationally as a very popular golf destination. As stated in the
National Strategic Plan for Tourism (ME, 2006:6), the “proposal for the country will focus on
the key factors that differentiate Portugal from other competing destinations – Climate and
light”, “History, culture and tradition”, Hospitality” and Concentrated diversity” and on
elements that bring value to Portugal in the context of tourists’ options – “Modern
authenticity”, Safety and Competitive quality”. The Algarve, has also these performance
features which can be important tools to develop the region as an excellence destination.
The municipality of Loulé is centrally located in the Algarve tourism destination. It entails
geographic diversity and socio-cultural, economic and environmental differences as for
example the very different stages of tourism development in the eleven parishes.
The Litoral, seaside presents plenty of natural resources and tourist attractions and it is the
region that gives visibility to the Algarve destination. This area has a big human density and a
great diversity of accommodation, restaurants and all kind of tourist supplies. The population
works mainly in the tertiary sector and generally is characterized by particular social cultural
elements, some of them very traditional and a marked culture of acceptance and integration.
In this area live daily those natives and other people of various nationalities and cultures,
some of which began as tourists and after that have become residents due the features of the
region and the attractiveness of a quality of life lifestyle. Coexist even immigrants from