Social (subsidized) tourism has also gained greater importance in recent years. Although there is as yet no agreed definition of social tourism, there has been considerable study on the subject. Dr.W.Hunziker at the second Congress of Social Tourism held at Vienna and Salzburg in Austria in May 1959, proposed the following definition:
“Social tourism is a type of tourism practiced by low income groups and which is rendered possible and facilitated by entirely separate and therefore easily recognizable service”.

From this definition of social tourism the following elements became clear. The first is the idea of the limited means. Manual workers are thus included in the scope of social tourism. Secondly, social tourism is subsidized. Thirdly, it involves travel outside the normal place of residence, preferable to a different environment.

Thus, ‘social tourism’ as we understand today, owes its origin to the annual paid holiday. Social tourism is a practice more prevalent in Eastern European countries. Soviet citizens coming to India and other friendly countries for tourism fall into this category. For the prominent officials from Kerala India travel mart is an unavoidable event to promote the various tourism infrastructures under the control of the state government. They take this opportunity to sell the tourism infrastructures to officials from other states. Thus the government guest houses have reported increased occupancy rates.

The concept of social tourism is also now a new fad with a vast majority of the government officials also. For long government holidays, almost a major section of the highly paid government officials were seen going on vacation to the luxurious guest houses and other star hotels managed by the government. These officials are given significant discounts if they stay in a particular destination over long period of time. Thus these facilities are now being fruitfully used up instead of these facilities lying in disuse.