Ethnic Tourism and Quality of Life: Community Perspectives

Ethnic tourism has recently been promoted as an economic development and cultural preservation strategy in many destinations. This tactic can have significant impacts on residents’ quality of life (QOL) in ethnic communities whose development potential is limited. This study reviews research at the intersection of ethnic tourism and QOL to examine how such tourism affects host groups’ culture, ethnicity, and QOL from a community perspective. The review indicates that although substantial attention has been devoted to the impact of ethnic tourism in general, little effort has been made to link these insights to residents’ QOL. It is argued that a more comprehensive framework is needed which integrates objective and subjective measures to explore the potential of ethnic tourism to contribute to QOL as well as the degree to which it can extend across situations.