Tourism, Leisure Development and Quality of Life for Local People

Sustainable development of tourism is an important tool to stimulate the development of tourist areas. An important role in this process is played by the local community, which is an important capital in the development of tourism, as well as a beneficiary of changes. Their attitudes, behaviors and involvement in development processes have a key impact on achieving environmental, social and economic goals of sustainable tourism development. The analysis will consider the role of residents in the following aspects: co-creator of the tourist product, beneficiary of the introduced improvements and changes, and direct recipient of the positive and negative effects of the development of tourism and recreation. The development of tourism has contributed to the significant development of regions frequently visited by tourists, but the dissatisfaction of local communities with the inappropriate attitude of tourists and their impact on the quality of life is growing. The aim of the work is to identify the factors of the quality of life of the inhabitants, on the example of Poland, which stimulate and the development of tourism in a sustainable process. The author of this study obtained the consent of selected communes to publish the survey on their websites. A total of 4257 respondents were surveyed. There is a change in the standard of living of users and socio-economic changes in the scale of a territorial unit. These changes are local in nature and are noticeable to both residents and tourists. The author's research, the results of which are presented, indicate that there are groups of local communities that have different views on the implementation of local tourist goals. There are strong links between the quality of life of the local population and their contribution to the tourism product and the problems that tourism brings. The study complements the analysis of individual tourist regions in Poland presented so far and provide a broader view of the opportunities and threats in sustainable development.