Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Social indicator systems
Social indicators may be grouped under different criteria. The grouping is primarily
determined by what phenomenon the indicators are used to represent. Horn (1993) has these
indicators grouped according to the following criteria:
A. Objective type:
1. Univariate approach: based on a single variable time series (for example, the
number of guest-nights at the town)
2. Multivariate "simple" approach: the formation of a combined index from
heterogeneous indicators (e.g. the distribution of foreign tourists visiting Hungary,
by nationality)
3. Multivariate "complex" approach: based on a complex approach of a socioeconomic
phenomenon, combining a variety of aspects (e.g., changes in long-term
trends of domestic tourism)
B. Derived, or subjective, type: according to Horn's theory, these indicators do not directly
measure the social phenomenon, but use the so-called substitute (proxy) indicators for that
purpose. These derived or inherited social indicators are based on individual perception of
living conditions, or subjective assessment of social facts
An objective-subjective distinction of social indicators is important because the models of
social indicators can be distinguished according to the preference for the type of indicators
they use to describe social phenomena. The summary below displays how, according to these
criteria, a separate index for tourism is used in existing models of social indicators, and how
the topic of tourism is linked with that of quality of life (Bukodi 2003).
The emergence of tourism in social indicator models
Some models use both descriptive and analytical approach at the same time. The resourcebased
(Scandinavian) model is strictly descriptive in nature. Primarily intended to describe
how all kinds of resources – financial, economic, related to way of living (health, social
network, education) – are distributed along different grouping criteria, it reveals in an
analytical framework the main reasons why social differences manifested in living conditions
exist. The Swedish model uses a relatively large group of objective indicators for each of
these reasons to try to describe living conditions of the affected population.
The approach with the set of social indicators called quality of life took root when scientists
set out to study individual and social well-being– and the question arose whether it was
sufficient to assess only objective living conditions, or there was also a need to examine these
objective circumstances from the individual’s point of view (as it was alluded to earlier, when
defining subjective well-being). The function of social indicators in the ‘quality of life'
approach to the model was to measure the gap between aspirations and reality.
According to the methodological foundations of the component model developed by English
researchers (also called the English model), social phenomena marked by the "living
conditions" concept can be divided into components (e.g. employment, household, health
status), and these components can be studied by statistical tools separately. Application of the
Component (or English) model has a double aim: on the one hand it provides a cross-sectional
social map of the time given, and on the other hand, it displays the nature and direction of
temporal changes regarding certain social phenomena 51 (Bukodi 2001).
51 A description of these models can be found in more detail in: Bukodi Erzsébet: Társadalmi jelzőszámok –
Elméletek és megközelítések, Szociológiai Szemle 2001/2. 35–57 o.