Health, Wellness & Tourism: what data is well enough? Part I

Is wellness one industry, a business field, a sector or a separate market? Or neither? If we can believe the number of google hits wellness is a business field and not an industry per se. How can we estimate the value of this business? Can we follow similar approaches as we can see in the more established industries, e.g. in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) industry or we would need to apply a way more complex and consequently more generalised approach? Our series of essays will initiate a discussion about the measurability and estimation approaches about the value of wellness.

In an era when everything becomes wellness it is not surprising that industry practitioners, politicians or even the general public is looking for some hints that can describe the wellness phenomenon in more detail. Data, as in numbers indicating the size of what we are talking about seem to be the most obvious choice for description and comparison purposes. The ‘only’ difficulty is how to obtain data that is comprehensive, comparable, reliable and meaningful at the same time?!

First of all we need to agree in what exactly we are talking about, what we are measuring and comparing. The first question is what wellness is: a sector, an industry, a business field or a market?

Following the discussions started at threerooms.com, we can consider the following issues:

· A sector represents a group of industries and markets that share common attributes. Each sector has unique characteristics and a different profile, such as found in financial sector.

· An industry can be described by any general business activity or commercial enterprise that can be isolated from others, and is frequently named after its primary product. Industries are categorised generally according a uniform classification code (e.g. Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)). Industry means the companies and activities involved in the process of producing goods for sale, especially in a factory or special area.

· The economy is the system of trade and industry by which the wealth of a country is made and used. It refers to the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period.

· Whereas a market is the group (or groups) of customers who require the products and services provided by an industry. This can be further split by a process called market segmentation, where the whole available market is divided in to smaller groups, called segments.

Do these suggested descriptions help us defining wellness?

Let me refer to the rather similar discussion back some 10–15 years, i.e. creative economy vs creative industries. Even today there is no definite agreement in the economy vs. industry debate. Furthermore, in 2008 creative economy was defined by UNCTAD in 2008 “As an evolving concept based on creative assets potentially generating economic growth and development”. Creative industries, however, were defined as those “in which the product or service contains a substantial element of artistic or creative endeavour and include activities such as architecture and advertising” (Caves, 2000).

Governments, policy makers as well as industry representatives went on and created their own definitions and categorizations which differed country-by-country. In one country creative industry included mainly the arts, advertising, fashion and cultural services, in another country it also included architecture, advertising or even computer games or biotechnology. Consequently, the various estimates about a country’s creative economy was not comparable with almost any other country’s data. We should not forget that creative economy/industry as a term did not define a new field but more like created an umbrella term for existing activities and industries — mainly for political and lobbying purposes.

Very much the same processes can be observed with relation to what we now call wellness. We all understand that the concept of wellness is not a straight forward to start with. First of all the term itself is a relatively recent one and it does not necessarily exist or mean the same in every language. Furthermore there is no universal definition of wellness per se, instead we have several definitions. Probably the one which encompasses the meaning in a very inclusive way suggests that “wellness addresses human health in a holistic or comprehensive sense and assumes that each person will actively participate in protecting their health, in preventing diseases and will not leave all this to medication”. Wellness can be translated to several domains. The frequent model translates it to 7 domains from physical, through spiritual to vocational and environmental.

Wellness is not similar to, for example the automotive industry, which has very well defined boundaries. It includes the design, development, manufacturing, marketing and sales of vehicles but does not include e.g. filling stations or repair providers. The production logic and sequence of car manufacturing makes relatively easy to estimate and measure the performance of this industry. One may argue that cars would not move without fuel therefore that is also a much related component. Still, car fuel is considered as part of the oil industry or more widely the energetics. If such distinctive and separating measures did not exist, certain activities and therefore the relevant outputs would be double counted in two or more performance estimations. Applying this logic here the double counting would take oil industry into consideration both in the automotive as well as in energetics.

This is when the problem with estimation may begin. Not having a universal definition, therefore not having a more or less definite list of activities that definition may cover leaves any number or argument pro or con being rather questionable.

Applying the car manufacturing analogy to wellness let’s look at how one of the most referenced source, i.e. the Global Wellness Institute has defined the term and its elements. For comparative reasons four summary charts are compared. During the years the components changed which makes the comparison impossible or at least very limited. For example incorporating public health alone or changing from spa economy to spa industry mean that the scope changed significantly.

The GWI provides a set definitions for the various categories but as the footnotes also note these categories overlap. This alone creates critical issues for anyone who may attempt to estimate a number for each category. What would really indicate the size and role of the industry is the net numbers. Charts are from GWI publications.

The estimation of the size and the importance of any activity, economy, industry or sector is not an easy one. Measuring performance requires huge amount of comparable data. Only a few organizations have made an attempt to put a number on the estimated size. Such estimations are always very complicated and the results are of indicative nature, at best. Just as an indication of how difficult it is to gather comparable data from different countries it is enough to look at how complex the Methodological Notes of the UN World Tourism Organizations are (http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/methodological_notes_2019.pdf). And these notes are for tourism only.

As the wellness related concepts, activities and understanding consolidate the estimation will become more precise as well. As for now consider these figures as estimates.

by Laszlo Puczko, Co-founder of Health Tourism Worldwide