A key goal for society as a whole is the pursuit of well-being, which leads to the happiness of its individual members; as such, it is of critical socioeconomic relevance. In this regard, it is important to study which factors primarily affect the happiness of the population. In principle, these factors are associated with income level and residential and job stability, or more specifically, citizens’ quality of life. This research, which is based on a multidimensional concept of quality of life, uses a regression model to explain the dependence of Spaniards’ happiness on the well-being or quality of life provided by their work, their family situation, their income level and aspects of their place of residence, among other factors. The data were collected through an anonymous survey administered to a representative sample of Spanish citizens. The methodology used approaches the intangible concept of happiness as resulting from different individual and social causes selected from dimensions addressed in the literature, and calculates their effects or importance through regression coefficients. One of the findings is that people with the highest level of well-being or quality of life in the most important dimensions mostly claim to be happy. With respect to gender, it has a significant influence on the dimensions included in the model of citizen happiness and on personal issues. It is also shown that the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic negatively influenced the quality of life of Spanish citizens and therefore their happiness.

The rich cultural and natural heritage of European countries have brought European tourism to the forefront. This status creates a need to take care of said tourism, with a particular focus on analysing its sustainability. Although several authors have pointed out the difficulties of transferring the principles of sustainable development to a specific sector, there is a consensus regarding the need to carry out an analysis at a local level, using indicators as a key tool. In this regard, it becomes very apparent that there is a need for an international set of indicators that enable an assessment of the transition towards sustainability at a local level. As yet, however, there is no widely-used approach. This paper proposes an index to measure sustainable tourism at the European NUTS 2 level, since lack of available data makes it impossible to produce indicators for cities.