The Relationship between Development of Tourism, Quality of Life and Sustainable Performance in EU Countries

Abstract

Relationships between tourism development, quality of life and sustainable performance are very important topics and benchmarks in long-term policies and strategies at global, regional and local levels. Starting from the concerns expressed by researchers and international organizations, as well as the characteristics of the European region, our research aims to identify these relationships in the context of increasing pressure from stakeholders on the adoption of decisive measures in order to limit the negative effects manifested globally in the context of climate change. Using cluster analysis, we managed to identify relevant groups of countries, based on the selected variables. The results of the study highlight the existence of a positive relationship between the development of tourism and the increase of the quality of life, as between the level of sustainable performance and tourism intensity, opening the possibility of future research on the causal relationships between the selected variables and the promotion of coherent public policies that support the sustainable development.