The present work analyses the effect of tourist activity on quality of life of resident population by conducting two parallel surveys gathered via face-to-face structured interviews in two tourist destinations: Alghero in Italy and Sitges in Spain. The relationship between tourism and quality of life is investigated in an indirect way by looking at how and to what extent the perception of quality life changes for people living in tourism neighborhoods or having contact with tourists in their everyday life. The work uses an integrative definition of quality of life that combines objective and subjective elements. Precisely, it measures not only opportunities such as the presence of services/amenities/disamenities, but also the accessibility to those services such as the actual “frequency of use” or the “time spent”. Findings indicate that the relationship between the presence of tourists and quality of life of residents is different in the two destinations and precisely that the Spanish location shows signal of distress, while in the Italian destination the opposite occurs. The attitude of residents towards tourists is expected to be different accordingly.