Quality-of-Life Community Indicators for Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management

While community quality-of-life indicators are gaining much needed attention in both scholarly work and practice, their application in the areas of parks, recreation and tourism management are not as well known. The applicability of indicator systems for natural resource and natural resource area management within the parks and recreation arena is very high, including urban parks and recreation programs and their influence on quality of life. Within the parks and recreation field, measuring the effectiveness of recreation programs or resource management is vitally important. The same holds true for tourism management. Community indicators represent a way to assess management frameworks and gauge their impact on quality of life. The three areas of parks, recreation and tourism comprise an integrated academic discipline. Across the globe, researchers in this discipline are conducting innovative indicator research; however, very little literature is available. This books rises to fill that need by providing a compendium of example studies that reflect the range of work currently being conducted.