Impact of Tourism on the Quality of Life on the Citizens of the Essay

Impact of Tourism on the Quality of Life on the Citizens of the Historic Center of Venice, Italy - Essay Example To achieve this primary objective, the first step is to survey and record the present distribution of retail shops and the type of primary goods such as food and other daily commodities sold therein. The number of shops that predominantly sell tourist-oriented goods would be recorded and a â€Å"touristization index† would be formulated to estimate the prevalence of tourist-oriented shops in the region. Another index, viz. â€Å"shopping comfort† would also be formulated to measure the quality of life based on the importance and necessity of products sold in these retail shops, the accessibility of the stores, the number of people of different age groups in each shop’s vicinity, average price of basic goods etc. Once these indices are computed, the shopping landscape of Venice from the time of World War II (1945) to 2005 would be recreated. This will facilitate the study of the evolution of the retail landscape of Venice in 60 years, and will also equip the resea rchers with enough data to help in identifying the trends in its evolution. The research problem that this study wishes to address is whether tourism has influenced the quality of life of people living in Venice, by affecting its retail sector. The study wishes to ascertain whether shops selling basic and daily commodities have been replaced by tourist-oriented shops selling artifacts and souvenirs, thereby affecting the common people’s daily lives. Access to shops selling foodstuff and other necessities, the age of individuals living in the shop’s vicinity and the distances travelled to procure goods for daily needs will thus be assessed by the study. research problem that this study wishes to address is whether tourism has influenced the quality of life of people living in Venice, by affecting its retail sector. The study wishes to ascertain whether shops selling basic and daily commodities have been replaced by tourist-oriented shops selling artifacts and souvenirs, thereby affecting the common people’s daily lives. Access to shops selling foodstuff and other necessities, the age of individuals living in the shop’s vicinity and the distances travelled to procure goods for daily needs will thus be assessed by the study. The study also intends to propose alternatives, and public and private interventions to stop or even reverse the trends, in case they are found to have a negative impact on the people’s quality of life. II. Research Paradigm The proposed research aims at challenging popular claims that increasing tourism in Venice has led to the replacement of shops selling goods of basic necessity with shops selling tourist-related goods such as souvenirs and apparel. Although this has been the common perception of local citizens since the past 30 years, the belief is largely anecdotal and is not backed by quantitative or qualitative evidence. Moreover, no investigation has been done until date on the type of local stores t hat have been running and those that have been shut down since the second World War. Therefore, the belief that tourism has negatively impacted the people’s quality of life by changing the retail scene is based on unconfirmed assumptions. The researchers thus wish to challenge the hypothesis that â€Å"Venice is becoming a harder and more costly place to live in, where souvenir shops have displaced stores providing primary necessities to the aging local population†. It is expected that this hypothesis will either be confirmed or decried after the successful completion of the proposed study. If the hypothesis is confirmed, potential solutions will be proposed. However, if the hypothesis were disproved, it would result in a paradigm shift in the local perception