Happiness Factory Far and Away – Quality of Life-Oriented Tourism Development in Austria

Abstract

Tourism geography is one of the disciplines close to the practice of tourism itself. In addition to its contribution to theory and academic literature, the formation and development of tourism geography have always been in symbiosis with the everyday practice of tourism, in particular in the service of planning, development, and regulation. Tourism geography focuses on the social, economic, and environmental issues of the interaction between the traveler (homo turisticus) and the destination, but the exploration of psychological changes has also become increasingly prominent in the last decade. The examination of the impact of tourism on the quality of life in Hungary was induced during the process of drafting the National Tourism Development Strategy 2005-2013, and the think tank established at that time enriched both theory and practice with valuable research results. This study reviews the impact of tourism on well-being, and then demonstrates how the theory can be transformed into planning practice through the process of designing the Austrian Tourism Strategy (Masterplan T) and the document itself, published in 2019. Keywords: quality of life (QoL), happiness, well-being, Austria, tourism, TDM, brand, quality living space/destination