WebinarOnline
Beyond satisfaction: How can tourism and hospitality genuinely enhance community quality of life?
Friday, 27 November 2026
Visitor satisfaction does not show whether a destination works for residents. This session focuses on wellbeing, fairness and local influence.
About this event
Visitor satisfaction and tourism expenditure reveal little about whether destination growth supports the wellbeing of residents. This webinar examines how tourism and hospitality affect housing affordability, employment quality, municipal services, environmental health, public space and local identity. It asks how success should be defined when commercial growth produces different outcomes for property owners, tenants, workers, families and other groups within the same destination. The session will place community quality of life alongside business performance as a central measure of tourism development.
Panellists will evaluate resident surveys, distributional economic analysis, participatory research and locally defined indicators of change. The discussion will consider how evidence can identify both aggregate trends and unequal effects that broad averages conceal. It will examine the timing of participation, particularly whether residents can define priorities before investment and infrastructure decisions become difficult to reverse. Attention will also be given to changing attitudes over time and to the danger of assuming that any community speaks with a single voice.
Participants will learn to construct a balanced assessment that connects economic benefits with social and environmental costs. They will consider indicators, thresholds and governance processes that allow communities to influence the direction and scale of development. The webinar will also address how hospitality businesses can align employment, procurement and operational decisions with local objectives. Delegates will leave with methods for evaluating trade-offs transparently and for determining whether tourism contributes to community flourishing rather than merely increasing visitor demand or corporate revenue. This approach supports accountable regional decision-making.