Toward an Assessment of Quality of Life Indicators as Measures of Destination Performance

This study tests a reciprocal relationship between objective quality of life indicators and traditional destination performance measures over time. A set of 16 quality of life indicators (covering economic, social, and environmental domains) and a set of five destination performance variables of tourist arrivals and spending proxies were used to perform a canonical correlation analysis. This panel data represents observations from 105 countries during the period of 1995-2018. The findings confirmed that a reciprocal link exists between the two sets. Specifically, the results showed that economic factors, along with education, and health indicators are strongly associated with performance measures of the tourism industry. The article concludes with implications for destination managers and avenues for future research.