Consumer Behavior in Tourism Symposium 2012 - CBTS 2012
December 10-13, 2012
Bruneck/Brunico, South Tyrol, Italy    
“Tourism and Quality of Life Research: Theories, Practices, Applications,
and Challenges"”


Conference Goal  

The goal of this conference is to provide a platform for scholars, practitioners, government agencies, educators and postgraduate students in tourism and allied fields to focus on tourism and quality of life (QOL) research issues both from theoretical and applied research perspectives. The conference also serves as a place to stimulate discussion, and exchange of ideas and challenges in the context of tourism and QOL research relationships at all levels: individual, family, community, and societal.     

Conference Themes and Topics  

We are seeing a noticeable number of studies examining tourism and its connection with and contribution to QOL of individuals as participants in travel and leisure activities.  A wide variety of research questions are being examined, relating individual life happiness and well-being to tourism issues such as tourist satisfaction, quality of tourism experiences, medical tourism and wellness, and residents’ QOL.  Tourism needs to address the issue of whether or not it meets both the basic and growth needs of its stakeholders for it to contribute to the quality of stakeholders’ life.  The effectiveness of tourism to facilitate and support QOL policy imperatives (e.g., poverty reduction, revitalization of community heritage and culture, preservation and protection of cultural and natural resources, and sustainability) is an increasingly important research agenda.  Thus, two major themes guide the topics of this conference: the first theme is to examine the effect of tourism on the QOL of individual tourists; and the second theme is to examine the effect of tourism on the QOL of residents and other tourism stakeholders.  
The topics of the conference include but are not limited to the following:  

QOL from the Perspectives of Tourists, e.g.:

• Approaches to conducting QOL research in tourism
• Tourist consumption behavior and QOL
• Subjective indicators of QOL and tourism
• Salient dimensions of tourist satisfaction and QOL
• Vacation experience and QOL of individuals (segmentation)
• Impacts of the interaction between host and guest on QOL of individuals
• Quality of vacation experience and destination competitiveness
• Extra ordinary experiences and tourism 

QOL from the Perspectives of Residents, e.g.:

• Destination PLC and QOL of residents
• Objective indicators of QOL and tourism
• Destination competitiveness from the perspectives of providers and QOL
• Perceptions of tourism impacts and satisfaction with particular life domains (material well-being; emotional well-being; community well-being, and health and safety well-being)
• Sustainable tourism and QOL connection
• Economic value of tourism and QOL of residents
• Links between access to resources, empowerment and QOL of residents
• QOL of tourism indicators - development of QOL indicators for tourism
• Poverty elimination through tourism – QOL
• Outcome indicators of QOL in tourism
• Process indicators of QOL in tourismPolicy development in tourism QOL research

  
Organized by the
Competence Centre in Tourism Management and Tourism Economics (TOMTE)
Free University of Bozen/Bolzano at Bruneck/Brunico