Keywords

1 Introduction

Tourism is one of the industries that is growing rapidly. People are travelling more and more, visiting new places and delighting in the nature around us. The development of transport and the possibility of travelling by different modes of transport has meant that more and more new places are being discovered by tourists. In the concept of sustainable tourism, it is important to combine the interests of the local community and tourists. Sustainable tourism is emerging in more and more studies as a necessary element to maintain sustainability in the tourism area.

Studies in the area of quality of life for local residents are being carried out by researchers from various fields to analyse aspects of quality of life.

In the literature, the authors focus on the development of tourism as factors of change on a national scale [1,2,3,4] or at the regional level [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12].

The legitimacy of this type of analysis stems both from the point of view of the inhabitants, for whom quality of life is an important aspect of life, and at the same time, increasingly, these studies show what directions the local authorities should follow in order to improve these conditions. These studies appear to be important for organizational, social and economic reasons.

The aim of this study is to examine how tourism and related elements affect the quality of life of the inhabitants of tourist areas. The analysis is intended to give an answer as to which factors generate positive factors and which negative factors for the inhabitants and what their intensity is. The information gathered will help to determine whether tourism has a sustainable impact on the quality of life of local residents and how to improve these relationships so that they coincide and do not clash. The research was conducted on a purposively selected group of inhabitants of the population of towns and villages located in Western Poland, representing tourist destinations of different values. The study used a synthetic amount added by Strahl [13] and an integrated set of diagnostic features used by Kudłacz [1].

The following research questions were formulated:

  • Q1: How do residents perceive the surrounding tourist assets on their quality of life and what is their importance?

  • Q2: In which areas do residents see opportunities and threats to tourism development that may affect their quality of life?

  • Q3: What are the relationships between areas affecting quality of life, their importance and tourism areas?

2 Literature Review

The dynamic development of tourism is linked to the enormous opportunities that have arisen through the development of transport [14,15,16,17]. Tourism is reaching more and more new places and new opportunities to exploit specific areas of tourist attraction are emerging [18]. Key factors are the relationships that are formed between tourists and the local community [19,20,21,22]. It is therefore important in sustainable tourism to bring about opportunities for tourists to enjoy the benefits without disrupting the quality of life of local people in these areas [23,24,25]. Such a situation creates more and more challenges for managers as well as regulators, who should try to satisfy both sides. The analysis of the theoretical underpinnings of the sustainable tourism concept and its objectives, criteria and principles has received much attention both in the scientific literature [26,27,28,29], where all aspects in the industry are considered. Equally important are the analyses and conclusions made in the strategic documents guiding tourism policy at various levels of tourism management [30,31,32], which indicate the problems as well as the objectives of the new solutions to be set in the subordinate areas.

Sustainability can be interpreted in many different ways [20, 21, 24, 26, 33]. The term refers to all aspects of life and all its active and passive participants. Maintaining a balance between different, often competing needs is at the heart of the term. In sustainability there is an awareness of the constraints that exist in the environmental, social and economic areas, but the overarching goal is to seek a solution that is most optimal for all participants. Since the 1960s, tourism has been categorized as a growth industry. The growth of tourism has contributed to the significant development of regions that are attractively touristic. Many countries have improved their economic development by developing the tourism sector [34]. Tourism development is a multidimensional process and includes not only changes in tourism but areas concerning the life of local communities, including but also in poverty reduction [35].

In the concept of sustainable tourism, two strands of community behavior have emerged. The quality of life factors of local residents that stimulate or inhibit tourism development in the sustainable process are numerous [36]. Without analysing this aspect in detail, it is worth noting that the concept of sustainable tourism in tourist areas should be based on the integration of a bundle of objectives:

  • Ecological—aimed at long-term protection of naturally valuable resources,

  • Economic—generating income and increasing the effectiveness and competitiveness of the local tourist economy in the long term,

  • Social—raising the level and quality of life of the local population [36,37,38,39].

Local government organisations that are in charge of administering a given tourist attraction or a given tourist area very often stand at a crossroads, as the expectations of local residents or communities are extremely different. The producers or participants of the tourism product, i.e. the local community, (which profits from the tourism product, is oriented towards working in the field of tourism services) is interested in their development and that there are more and more tourists [40].

A local community that does not profit from tourism, or whose tourism makes it difficult for them to function in a place, is usually opposed to the development of a tourist attraction. The local community is beginning to play an increasingly important role in sustainable tourism. The attitude of the community largely determines whether local authorities, acting under pressure from local residents, will try to find a compromise for the surrounding environment in order to develop their regions.

3 Methodology and Results

A questionnaire was conducted for the purposes of the study. The questionnaire was based on literature [1, 2, 10,11,12], it was published in social networks in target and thematic groups (on websites visited by residents and tourists of the studied towns). The author of this study obtained the consent of selected communes to publish the survey on their websites. A total of 4257 respondents were surveyed. Respondents ranked their answers using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The questionnaire was designed to include statements related to the state of sustainable tourism and its impact on respondents’ quality of life. The responses were grouped into four dimensions of sustainability. The methodology in this study used Cronbach’s alpha coefficient to test the reliability of the variables and the values obtained, as well as to measure respondents’ satisfaction with the four dimensions of sustainability. The survey results obtained show that the majority of respondents are women (57%). Those who chose to respond to the survey have an average age of 34 years (ranging from 18 to 77 years). In addition, 44.7% of all respondents to the survey declared a tertiary education, while 42.2% have a secondary education, 10% have a vocational education and only 3.1% have a primary education. Most people 30.5% live in rural areas, almost as many respondents live in a medium-sized city (25.8%) as in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (24.2%). In contrast, the fewest respondents are from small towns representing 19.5% of the total respondents. As part of the statistical data processing, the reliability of the variables was assessed to determine the dimensions of sustainability and residents’ satisfaction with tourism development. An index calculation was carried out as a mean variable that included each dimension (independent variables). Table 1 shows the scaling of items for the satisfaction index for the local community as well as visitors to the tourist sites.

Table 1 Scale items for the satisfaction index
Full size table

The combined average satisfaction with sustainable tourism development for both groups of respondents is 3.97 and 4.02.

By analyzing the obtained results, it can be noticed that the obtained values are relatively identical for both groups of respondents. This indicates the validity and reliability of the obtained research results. The Cronbach’s Alpha scores are 0.62 for the institutional dimension (four items), at very low levels of 0.78 and 0.74 for the ecological dimension (five items), 0.68 and 0.61 for the economic dimension (six items), and 0.71 and 0.69 for the socio-cultural dimension (six items). The institutional dimension of sustainability has the lowest values (3.09 and 3.11).

The socio-cultural dimension (4.02 and 3.89) and the ecological dimension of sustainability (3.63 and 3.79) have the highest average values.

Thus, the obtained values indicate that these two dimensions have the greatest impact on the respondents, i.e., these dimensions of sustainability contribute to sustainable tourism development to the greatest extent (Table 2).

Table 2 Regression analysis of satisfaction (n = 4257)
Full size table

4 Discussion and Conclusions

The above research is based on the basic principles of sustainable development, the application and successful implementation of which increases the chance of an ade-quate quality of life for the local population and to appear on the tourist market as a sustainable tourist attraction. In Poland's conditions, both job creation and quality of life instruments are interrelated and should be implemented together. Based on the results, residents rated at an average level the surrounding tourism assets that affect their quality of life.

The research shows that the increase in the tourist position of a given locality, which is due to the appropriate tourist development and the interest of tourists, leads to a decrease in the functionality of this locality. Residents complain about the lack of parking spaces, increased traffic, overcrowded local transport, difficult access to a tourist attraction or not using it (e.g. a beach by a lake), using tourist products in the off-season (e.g. gastronomy). On the other hand, the positive changes that the residents indicated, which improve the functional resources, are most often a greater number of jobs, opportunities to create new businesses, better road infrastructure, improved public transport, an increased gastronomic offer and an increased number of cultural events. Most of the towns strengthen their positions and try to take advantage of the tourist attractions by eliminating or reducing the inconveniences that appear for the inhabitants.

Residents indicate a preponderance of opportunities over threats that may affect their quality of life. There are strong relationships between areas affecting quality of life, their importance and tourism areas, these relate to the labour market and earning opportunities in the tourism or related industry.