Tourism and Socio-cultural Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 210

In the following section, four indices of interest (Quality of Life Indicator,
Human Development Index, Better Life Index and Social Progress Index) will
be briefly examined.
Quality of life indicator
The change in understanding of development paradigms (see Chapter 2)
has also impacted units of comparison. National growth indicators, such as
gross national product (GNP) per capita, are often used for comparing one
country to another and were initially the main type of indicator used to rank
countries on development scales. The concept of 'Quality of Life (QOL)' and
related measures have existed since the 1940s; nevertheless, in the 1970s,
QOL became a popular social indicator. For example, the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN and UNESCO
adopted QOL in their reports (Land et al. , 2012). These indicators attempt to
measure 'being well and doing well' (Land et al. , 2012: 12) or personal well-
being (emotional well-being and life evaluation) and productivity. QOL
indicators have recently been modified to minimise the problem of unit of
comparison; however, many indices today are still comparing units of 'nation',
'culture' or 'society'. Contrasting units such as 'whole nation' and 'whole soci-
ety' suggests an assumption that they are internally integrated or that there
is no diversity within the unit, not even male-female divisions (Calhoun,
1995; Sklair, 1995). Within the concept of universalism, there is also the
assumption that each society and culture functions based on the same system
as in the Euro-American model (Calhoun, 1995). These assumptions of integ-
rity within the unit, and equality of each unit, result in the devaluation of
differences. In order to mitigate Western bias of known indicators, the
International Society of Quality-of-Life Studies created comparable regional
barometers (e.g. Eurobarometer and Afrobarometer) with indigenous
researchers (ISOQOL, 2013; Land et al. , 2012). The UN Human Development
Index is often considered an extension of QOL indices.
As a notable achievement, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) calcu-
lated its own Quality of Life Report in 2005. The EIU attempted to sepa-
rate life-satisfaction (subjective) from actual quality of life in the nation
(objective). The nine indicators used in the calculation are: material well-
being, health, political stability and security, family life, community life,
climate and geography, job security, political freedom and gender equality.
In this calculation, education levels and the rate of real GDP growth and
income inequality were excluded based on the results of earlier investiga-
tions (EIU, 2005).
Challenges in comparison also arise when comparing one nation to
another in the study of tourism development. When comparing at the
destination level, a researcher may find one destination area to be far more
lucrative in terms of economic development than other destination areas in