For many destinations, strengthening tourism as an economic factor in terms of value creation and income generation as well as regional employment promotion plays a central role in strategic destination development. In order to obtain reliable information on the economic importance of tourism in the destination, instruments such as the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) have become increasingly established in destination market research. The growth strategies pursued by many destinations to achieve economic goals were reflected in continuously rising numbers of arrivals and overnight stays before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the fact that economic growth also has limits to its sustainability was demonstrated, among other things, by the intensifying academic, political and media discussions on the topic of “overtourism”. The question increasingly arises as to how sustainable destination development, which takes social and ecological sustainability goals into account alongside economic goals, can be realized in harmony with the local population.
With the growing social demand that the contribution of tourism goes far beyond its economic significance and should also contribute to the quality of life of local people, interest in the local perspective has become the focus of tourism research. The Tourism Acceptance Study was the first comprehensive study to determine the effects of tourism on the local population in their own place of residence. At federal level, a stagnation trend in tourism acceptance has been evident since 2019. In addition, it can be seen that the acceptance of tourism in Germany as a place of residence is (significantly) higher than the acceptance of tourism in person. Consequently, residents recognize tourism as an economic factor for their place of residence, but perceive it less as a driver of their own quality of life.
This raises the following key questions:
The goal of the “Quality of Life and Tourism” project is to develop a method for measuring tourism’s contribution to residents’ perceived quality of life. As part of a representative pilot study, approximately 3,800 Germans were surveyed nationwide in October 2022, and approximately 750 residents each from Hesse and Lower Saxony between the ages of 18 and 74 were surveyed as part of two independent sample boosts. Initial univariate results were presented at the 2022 German Tourism Day in Mainz. The initial findings from further multivariate statistical analyses were presented at the DGT conference in Bern in December 2022; a paper based on these findings has been accepted for presentation at the Consumer Behavior in Tourism Symposium (CBTS) in Breda, the Netherlands, in June 2023.
In 2023, a follow-up survey was conducted using an optimized questionnaire that included additional questions. In addition to the survey conducted at the federal level, the survey was also carried out in 12 German states. The following year (2024), the survey was conducted again in an urban setting, and the questionnaire was expanded.
You can find the publicly available earnings reports in the "Downloads" section.
In addition, the results for the federal states and the urban context were analyzed in individual reports using regression analyses. If you are interested in these results, please feel free to contact us.
The 2022 Pilot Project is an independent research project conducted in cooperation with the Future Development Working Group of the Deutscher Tourismusverband. The 2023 follow-up study was also conducted in close collaboration with the Deutscher Tourismusverband and representatives of the participating federal states (LTOs, ministries). The 2024 city-level survey was conducted in cooperation with Magic Cities e.V.
