Abstract
Although a number of studies examined local communities' perceived quality of life (QOL) related to tourism development, little research has directly investigated the objective measures of residents' QOL. This article used China as a case to examine how tourism development relates to and possibly impacts objective measures of residents' QOL at a regional level. Specifically, the study explored whether significant differences exist among the three groups of provinces with varying levels of tourism development in relation to 17 objective indicators of QOL. The source of data mainly consisted of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and all provincial bureaus of statistics from 1990 to 2006. The results indicated that the residents of provinces with the highest level of tourism development lead a significantly “better life” than those who are in the regions on medium or low level of tourism development.
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