Significantly impact on the tourism competitiveness of the largest cities provides the quality of people's lives. The majority of experts attribute this to the following factors:

• the changing age structure of society;
• increase in the number of older tourists;
• improving standards of environmental safety;
• improved transport infrastructure,
• development of health services;
• improving quality standards of public health.

In the study of  quality of  living in 420 cities in 2011, is recognized as the best city of Vienna (Table 1) [3]. 

Table 1

Worldwide quality of living survey 2011 (Worldwide Rankings, 2011)

The top ten, except for Vienna, entered Zurich, Auckland, Munich, Dusseldorf, Vancouver, Frankfurt, Geneva, Bern and Copenhagen.

Russian cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg, have taken 163 and 165 seats accordingly.

One of the general indicators of the «quality of living» is the Human Development Index (HDI). The index measures a country's achievements as public health, education and real income of its citizens, in three main directions:

• Health and Longevity reflects the life expectancy at birth;
• Educational coverage population reflect Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling;
• A decent standard of living, as measured by the Gross national income (GNI) per capita.

In 2011, the rating on the HDI index topped Norway (the index is 0.943). Level of life expectancy in Norway defined as one of the highest in the world - 81.1 years, the Gross national income (GNI) per capita - $ 47,557 (Table 2).

Table 2

The Human Development Index (HDI) and its components

(Worldwide Rankings, 2011) [2]

The Russian Federation occupies 66th place (HDI = 0.755) in the world rankings. In 2006, Russia ranked 64th (HDI = 802). Index greater than 0.8 made ​​called «high development», index of less than 0.5 - «low development». Russia are the main indicators: life expectancy at birth - 68.8 years, Mean years of schooling - 9.8 years, Expected years of schooling (years) - 14.1 years, Gross national income per capita - $ 14,561 a year.

In general, low Russia due to the social inequality, environmental problems, low life expectancy. In addition, in Russia (as the exporting country Oil and Gas) is a very strong emphasis on the use of natural resources, not to diversify the economy, which in the future could seriously affect the sustainability and stability of human development in the country.

When designing a system of state planning in St. Petersburg used a set of indicators, standards, including the standard quality of living in St. Petersburg.

Thus, the concept of socio-economic development of St. Petersburg until 2025 approved forecast: HDI in 2025 should reach to the city of not less than 0.96 (Table 3).

Table 3

Forecast on indicators of quality of living in St. Petersburg in 2025 [1]

This forecast is very optimistic estimate for the development of St. Petersburg as a world tourism center. Thus, the policy of tourism development of St. Petersburg should be directed on quality of life, which requires not just their ads, but the actual increase the quality and monitoring of socio-economic development of the city.

2. Human Development Report 2011 / http://hdr.undp.org

3. Mercer Quality of Living Survey /http://www.mercer.com