Public health and wellbeing in tourism policy: myths and reality

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the status and importance of public health and well-being in theoretical models and specific tourism policy programmes. A particular attention will be given to the ambivalence of tourism impact, both in terms of tourists and the community of the areas they visit. Tourism can perform both positive and negative functions (eufunctions and dysfunctions) in this respect, which unfortunately is frequently neglected in creating strategies and other programmes within tourism policies. Instead, the emphasis (as is the case of tourism education) falls on the positive impact of tourism on public health and well-being, with little attention given to its negative (potential or actual) effects. Even if these issues are raised, they mainly apply to tourists as such, whilst tourism, as a mass phenomenon, also exerts a huge impact on the state of public health and well-being of the communities of tourist traffic reception areas. In this chapter, the issue will be related to tourism policy implemented both nationally (at local, regional and national level) and internationally (globally).