Correspondence: Gianna Moscardo, School of Business, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld 4811, Australia

¹is a Professor in the School of Business at James Cook University where she teaches tourism and about sustainability issues and persuasive communication. Her background in psychology supports her interest in understanding how individuals make decisions about and respond to tourism and leisure experiences. Her background in sociology supports her interest in understanding how communities make decisions about and respond to tourism developments in their regions.

Received 16 January 2009; Revised 16 January 2009; Published online 2 March 2009.

Abstract

The concept of quality of life (QoL) is implicit in much of the academic literature on tourism impacts. Tourism academics have explored in some detail the contributions that tourism makes to various aspects of the QoL of destination residents. But these explorations have been limited by the social representations that academics hold of tourism. This paper examines those social representations and argues that a more explicit consideration of QoL can help in the development of a better framework for critically analysing tourism impacts. This framework is explored in a qualitative study of social representations of tourism and its impacts on the individual tourist.