Quality of Life in Rural Areas: A Set of Indicators for Improving Wellbeing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I find the topic as well as findings of this study interesting and valuable. Introduction as well as Literature Review section are well-elaborated.

I have following comments and suggestions for authors:

Regarding the duplicate content, lines 287-291 and lines 346-350 are redundant. Therefore, lines 346-350 should be removed.

Lines 516-517 and 523-524 contain duplicate content. Please rectify this redundancy.

In lines 613-614, the sentence "The survey asked residents the general satisfaction about their lives and specific information about satisfaction about some interesting topics" may benefit from a more precise formulation. Consider the revised version:

"The survey inquired about residents' overall life satisfaction and elicited specific responses regarding satisfaction with particular topics of interest."

In the Materials and Methods section, the authors mentioned the elaboration of questionnaires (surveys, interviews). However, more detailed information on these surveys is lacking. Specifically, details such as the number of questions, the question formats (e.g., multiple choice, rating scale, Likert scale, open-ended, demographic questions), and findings related to gender and age distribution of respondents are not provided. It is recommended to include this information for a comprehensive understanding of the methodology and results.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I would like first to congratulate you on extensive work you have done.

Here are few comments you should address in order to improve your already quality work:

I suggest to rewrite the title in order to address tourism and explain the contents/aims of your work more clearly.

Since you start the discussion section with the sentence related to rural tourism destination, you should focus more on this topic in introduction or/and literature review sections.

I would ask you to add reference for the statement on page 7, line 333 (UNWTO). 

Lastly, better focus in necessary on practical implication and certainly study limitations as your results are based on a rather small sample, and in not typical rural setting.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

The article article entitled " Rural destinations and quality of life: a set of indicators for improving well-being" aims to identify indicators of quality of life. The research has identified a set of potential indicators relevant to policy makers and rural administrators. 

The research topic undertaken is relevant to sustainable rural development. 

After reading the article, I have the following comments and suggestions for improving the article:      

Abstract: should be completed with the following information: research area, research period (when the research was carried out) and what methodology was used (in detail). The results of the research should have a deeper dimension. They should answer the research questions posed. 

Introduction

At the end of this chapter, there should be either a research question or a research hypothesis. 

Literature review 

Suggests improving this chapter. The authors focus primarily on presenting definitions of quality of life according to various researchers. They comment on various indicators adopted to define the standard of living, such as the GDP, while they should refer to rural areas.  

What studies have already been conducted in rural areas in terms of quality of life and living conditions? What indicators were used?  

Methodology 

The authors write that "The proposed set of indicators was developed for Alagna Valsesia, a rural mountain municipality engaged in the process of improving and developing sustainable tourism."  At the same time, the authors suggest that the set of indicators they have identified may be a set of indicators that cover the main dimensions of quality of life, along with relevant aspects for a rural tourism destination. Please justify why this region can be a model for other rural areas? 

Results 

This chapter is very interesting, and the results of the work are very well presented. In my opinion, what was still missing was information on what role tourists versus rural residents played in the selection of indicators?  

Discussion 

 Comparing the results of the study with other recent works, such as. 

Gwiaździńska-Goraj, M., Jezierska-Thöle, A., & Dudzińska, M. (2022). Assessment of the Living Conditions in Polish and German Transborder Regions in the Context of Strengthening Territorial Cohesion in the European Union: Competitiveness or Complementation?. Social Indicators Research, 163(1), 29-59.

With best regards, 

Reviewer

Author Response

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