Description
This discussion paper aims to provide an introduction to revised ways of understanding
and approaching the study of hospitality.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Discovering hospitality: observations from recent research
Conrad Lashley
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To cite this document:
Conrad Lashley, (2007),"Discovering hospitality: observations from recent research", International J ournal
of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 1 Iss 3 pp. 214 - 226
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Bob Brotherton, (1999),"Towards a definitive view of the nature of hospitality and hospitality management",
International J ournal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 11 Iss 4 pp. 165-173 http://
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Conrad Lashley, (2007),"Studying hospitality: beyond the envelope", International J ournal of Culture,
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Discovering hospitality:
observations from recent
research
Conrad Lashley
Nottingham Business School, Centre for Leisure Retailing,
Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This discussion paper aims to provide an introduction to revised ways of understanding
and approaching the study of hospitality.
Design/methodology/approach – In addition to the consideration of hospitality from an array of
social science and arts perspectives, the paper advocates an engagement with critical studies tools and
concepts. These perspectives allow the study of hospitality which is critical to the deconstruction of
meanings of hospitality, and to present an array of insights which better inform visions of the subject.
Findings – The paper discusses the importance of critical thinking and outlines three philosophical
positions relating to the study of hospitality and hospitality organisations. It suggests that too much
academic research appears managerial in focus and is weakened by the lack of critical ways of
thinking about hospitality. In particular, the paper goes on to highlight recent developments in
hospitality research which are informed by different social science perspectives.
Research limitations/implications – The study is based on a literature review though informed
by a number of research projects. Future research projects picking up on the interplay between
cultural, domestic and commercial hospitality contexts are major implications of this paper.
Practical implications – The paper implies that commercial and educational hospitality practice
would be better informed by both critical perspectives and reference to a number of social science and
arts perspectives on hospitality. Competitive business strategies based on customer quality
experiences will in future need to be informed by these perspectives.
Originality/value – This paper provides a unique overview of hospitality informed both by
hospitality research for careers in hospitality and the study of hospitality as a social interaction. As
such it has value to both industry practitioners and to academics interested in studying hospitality and
hospitableness.
Keywords Hospitality services, Society, Hospitality management
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Since, the publication of In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates
(Lashley and Morrison, 2000) there has been growing international interest in the study
of hospitality from a number of social science perspectives. The original discussion
group was based on academics from the ?eld of hospitality management education, but
increasingly the study of hospitality has included academics from many ?elds in the
social sciences and arts. A recent conference (September, 2005) at the University of
Lancaster, for example, was attended by over 30 academics from a range of social
science disciplines. In fact, there have been publications on hospitality contexts by
sociologist, philosophers and historians as well as from literary criticism. This paper is
intended to re?ect the potential value of studying hospitality from perspectives not
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-6182.htm
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Received January 2007
Revised March 2007
Accepted April 2007
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 1 No. 3, 2007
pp. 214-226
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180710817747
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traditionally concerned with management of commercial hospitality service
organisations.
In addition, there has been a growing debate within the hospitality management
?eld of study that a critical perspective needs to inform the intellectual stance adopted
in research and teaching activities, and that critical thinking skills should be developed
in students being prepared for careers in the sector. Morrison and O’Mahony (2002,
p. 196) in their discussion of a liberal approach to undergraduate education for the
hospitality programmes ?nalised their discussion by saying:
However, it is proposed that there is potential that traditional management may be
challenged, inherited rituals questioned, and breakout from historical mindsets achieved to
revitalise the future rather than simply replicate the past.
Botterill (2000, p. 194) goes on to suggest that the status of the ?eld could be increased,
“Critical social science promises, therefore, to provoke, in this case to raise the status of
hospitality and thereby elevate the interests it represents, including, ironically, the
hospitality industry”.
At root the study of hospitality as a human phenomenon involves the relationship
between hosts and guests. As such the study involves three broad dimensions which
were outlined in “In Search”. Although some have found this framework dif?cult to
accept, or too crude (Slattery, 2002; Brotherton, 2002), it does provide an attempt at a
framework within which to locate the study of hospitality. At a social and cultural
level, different societies require varying degrees of obligation to be hospitable with
duties and obligations on both guests and hosts. Importantly, these obligations do
change over time as a result of “modernity” or increased contact with tourists. Many of
those approaching the study of hospitality from social science disciplines are interested
in relationships between host communities and between tourists, but also migrants and
asylum seekers (Hage, 2005; Molz, 2005; Garcia and Crang, 2005). On the private or
domestic level individuals learn about hospitality in the home settings which can be
seen as producing a more genuine and authentic hospitality. In addition, the dominant
numbers of small hospitality ?rms offering food and drink, and/or accommodation are
in, many ways, a form of “commercial home” where the commercial activities are
intrinsically interwoven within the domestic and private setting. Also in commercial
dimension of hospitality (and related tourism) activities, the study of host and guest
relations, together with an understanding of the emotional dimensions present in
hospitality service interactions, can better inform the development of effective
competitive strategy.
Critical perspectives
For those immediately concerned with the education of hospitality management
practitioners, broadening the study of hospitality to incorporate more liberal, social
science and critical perspectives can better inform the management of hospitality
(Brotherton and Wood, 2000; Morrison, 2002). Morrison (2002, p. 163) says, “If
hospitality management research is to progress, those associated with it must re?ect
more deeply over its essential nature and practical manifestations” and Brotherton and
Wood (2000) argue that there is an urgent need for both researchers and practitioners
to challenge complacency and unquestioning mindsets. Morrison (2002, p. 163) goes on
to say that as a ?eld of study hospitality, “. . . may bene?t from introspection in the
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sense that it’s very epistemological basis and the conceptualization of its nature,
incidence and forms . . . to liberate it from current functionalism”. Whilst much
academic provision is largely concerned with programmes of management
development, the nature of the academic ?eld of hospitality is at the heart of
programmes of study. Fundamentally, hospitality must be established on a sound
social science base. The current preoccupation with management and relevance to
industry is an intellectual cul-de-sac, or as Botterill (2000, p. 193) describes it, “a closed
expert system in which experts speak to experts in an ever decreasing circle, defending
conventional ways of gaining knowledge”. Greater understanding of and contact with
academics in the social science and arts is essential if the hospitality ?eld of study is to
escape this closed system. In particular, engagement with critical perspectives is
crucial to future development, because a consequence of the closed system is that
conventionalism limits imagination and endeavor.
The study of research on “human resource management” in the hospitality sector
(Lashley and Watson, 1999) con?rmed many of these more generic observations. Much
of the applied research studying the management of people within the hospitality
industry was accused of being concerned with a managerial agenda, namely concerned
with identifying current problems in the management of people within these
organisations and attempting to provide answers to assist managers in being more
effective. In fact a trawl through any current issues of the key refereed research
journals in the hospitality ?eld of study con?rms the dominance of technocratic and
pragmatic research topics aimed at informing management practice without ever, or
rarely, questioning the nature of management, the consequences of organisational
power in hospitality businesses, or the potential cultural and political barriers to these
pragmatic and technocratic interventions.
Fox’s (1974) observation on differing perspectives on organisations and
organisational research is potentially useful because it presents a number of
different philosophical and political perspectives. Originally employed to dissect
commentaries on industrial relations and industrial con?ict, it does provide a useful
way of considering the stance taken by researchers in relation to applied organisation
research. Using this framework it is possible to criticise much applied hospitality
research as presenting a somewhat unitary view of the organisation and decisions
which managers make about organisation management. An assumption implicit in
much research is that hospitality organisations are peopled by individuals who have a
unity of interests in the organisation’s success. Whilst this may be the case on one level
of analysis, it is but one of several perspectives of the nature of hospitality work
organisations. Dominant management practice which makes little attempt to consult
with or involve subordinates in decision-making, re?ects the unitary perspective
amongst management practitioners in industry. Perhaps, as a consequence, much of
the research outputs demonstrate a unitary perspective in that there is a general
unwillingness to recognise hospitality organisations as involving con?icts between
people in different position within the structure. The management of organisations is
assumed to be essentially rational and devoid of political choices – technicians merely
making technical choices in the best interests of all.
Fox’s (1974) suggests that it is important to recognise that there are likely to be
con?icting needs and interests held by people in different positions within the
organisation. Thus, a more pluralistic analysis suggests that managers and owners on
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one hand and employees on the other have quite different sets of needs from the
organisation. The link between pay, costs and pro?ts, and terms and conditions of
employment are just two examples of issues where employers and the employed have
different, and thereby potentially con?icting, needs. There are also potential differing
needs and con?icts of interests between customers and owners, and between customers
and employees. The pluralistic perspective encourages research and analysis which
conceives organisation management as fundamentally problematic because of the
plurality of interests which are involved. Recent practice by bench mark organisations
to adopt balanced sore card approaches to assessing organisational performance from
a range of stakeholder perspectives is an example of management practice being
informed by this pluralist perspective. Certainly interest in studying the adaptability of
host communities to absorb the movement of the non-host communities through
tourism, migration or seeking of asylum can be studies though the perspectives of the
various parties involved.
Similarly, a radical pluralist views con?ict between those who own and manage
business and those who work in them as endemic to the nature of employment
relationships in modern capitalistic economies. Under this analysis, hospitality
organisations and the techniques which are both advocated and introduced for their
management are bound to result in con?icts between the key participants. Under this
analysis, research into the management of both employees and customer experiences
within hospitality organisations should be as much concerned with conditions which
sti?e and suppress con?ict, as they are with techniques which are designed to win
greater employee and customer commitment. Radical pluralist perspectives are
fundamentally critical in stance and see organisations as political arenas, subjecting all
actions to Seneca’s famous question, “Cui bono?” (Who bene?ts?). Managers make
decisions which represent one of a number of options and a critical analysis is as
concerned with the decisions and choices not made as it is with those selected. Radical
pluralist investigations into community responses to strangers frequently point to the
use of migrant labour as a way of disciplining labour markets by reducing the
bargaining power of host community labour. Migrant labour can frequently be bought
for a lower price and ?ows of migrants increases the supply of labour. Both have the
effect of reducing the market price for labour and limiting the ability of the work force
to push up wages.
Recent debates about hospitality management practice which despite the rhetoric of
the value of both internal and external customers, continues to prioritize short-term
cost management can be better informed from a critical perspective. Lucas (2004)
suggests the existence of two different approaches as high- and low-road employment
practices. Whilst she acknowledges that some ?rms do adopt a more high-road
approach, she also suggests that few US and British workplaces are managed in this
manner. She goes on to suggest that one reason for this is that labour costs are more
easily manipulated than other semi-variable or ?xed costs and this leads to a situation
where “actions will be driven by short-term ?nancial targets, and working to budgets
will drive a short-term employment relations agenda, encouraging low road practices”
(Lucas, 2004, p. 65). In stakeholder terms, priority is given to shareholder/owner’s
interests over those of employee and customer stakeholders. High road practices
prioritise customer and employee stakeholder interests. In the long-run it is said that all
stakeholders bene?t but managers are locked into reporting systems which give
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priority to ?nancial performance, trading period results, and shareholder interests.
Using Fox’s model of analysis, unitary perspectives dominate management practice
and few recognise even the potential plurality of interests within hospitality
organisations. Academic commentators must go beyond both these positions.
Botterill (2000, p. 194), for example discussing the mismatch between the economic
importance of hospitality and tourism and their low-political status as industries, says:
To understand the mismatch between economic importance and political status requires a
Marxist sense of the objectivity of the ideological structure. In this case an ideology that
clearly contains an implicit ranking of economic activity and subordinates hospitality to
other dominant interests despite the fact that it has over taken those economic interests in
importance. The social actors who construct the meaning of hospitality become, therefore, the
target for the politically-re?ective practice of critical social science whose aim is to transform.
Critical theory has a long tradition in the social sciences, often opposing approaches to
social science research which were based on the natural sciences. These more
positivistic approaches to social issues frequently claimed a scienti?c value-free
neutrality, but which “became regarded as a form of covert ideology, which obscured
objections to a repressive social order by studying people as objects rather than
subjects, ignoring the subjective meanings in social actions” (Simons, 2004, p. 5). The
linkage between critical theory and explanations of social actions and forms in the way
they in?uence presuppositions about enquiry is an important one. Simons (2004, p. 6)
provides the following overview:
In a more general sense, however, critical social theory, refers to qualitative theories which
adopt hermeneutic strategies in seeking to interpret and understand social action in contrast
to quantitative approaches, and at the same time evaluate as well as describe and explain
social action.
Critical theory enables the study of hospitality through the meanings associated with
by the various participants in hospitality transactions. Lynch’s (2005) work exploring
the experiences of being a guest in small hotels and guests houses, for example,
provides insights into the use of public and private spaces in the commercial home
sector. He suggests that there are some interesting con?icts of meanings and intents
between hosts and guests. Often guests chose this form of accommodation because
they wish to experience “genuine hospitality” with a “real family” whilst hosts
frequently want to maintain their own private space which is excluded from their
paying guests.
Randall’s (2000) work on the meanings created by television food programmes also
adopts a critical theory perspective. She uses the work of Bourdieu, developed to
analyse literary and cultural outputs to be able point to signs and signi?ers that
develop meanings. Similarly work on special meal occasions (Lashley et al., 2005) also
employs semiotic analysis so as to build a picture of the ways individuals recount
special meal occasions. Many of these techniques have been used in developing
analysis of media outputs in print and broadcast media. Critical theory is able to show
how media production, despite claims for independence, frequently creates an
impression of inevitability of existing social and political structures.
The use of the term hospitality to describe commercial hotel and catering activities
is an interesting example of the use of language to in?uence social meanings and
perceptions of activities. Hospitality emerged in the USA in the late 1970s/early 1980s
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as a label for the industry, for the title of academic journals and subsequently for the
?eld of study and for academic departments, programmes and subject associations.
Taking a more interpretive approach allows recognition of the word to convey
meanings in?uenced by cultural, historical, domestic and everyday meanings of
hospitality to describe activities which are founded on commercial relationships. The
“hospitality industry” suggests a relational dimension, that of offering hospitality, and
its associated bene?ts of welcome, of security, of being a revered guest, etc. Hotels,
restaurants and bars on the other hand are establishments which are recognised as
offering goods and services at a price. Hospitality allows impressions to be created of
emotional needs being met and bene?ts beyond the merely commercial. At the same
time, hospitality has allowed academics to engage with a discourse that explores these
wider meanings beyond the commercial spin intended in the ?rst instance. Hospitality,
therefore, represents an interesting paradox, as originally intended, it was obfuscating
and designed to mask the commercial purpose of the sector, yet at the same time it has
opened up a rich radical route of enquiry that can be used as a critique of commercial
organisational practice.
A critical theory approach to hospitality is not out of step with most other topics in
social sciences and the arts. Simons (2004, p. 8) says:
The bigger picture is that critical theory made inroads into almost all of the arts and social
science departments during the 1980s and 1990s from accountancy to art history, from
management to media, from religious studies to rhetoric.
Like other ?elds of study, critical theory within the hospitality ?eld should at least be
recognised as part of the intellectual terrain. A critical understanding of hospitality
enriches our collective understanding of the whole and thereby recognise a world of
ideas which extend beyond mere pragmatism and “how to do” mind sets.
The study of hospitality
Reactions to the direction of discussions and debates opened up by In Search of
Hospitality Theoretical Perspectives and Debates have been interesting if somewhat
diverse. For many academics in the hospitality management ?eld across the globe, the
impact of the book was described as being like having “a light bulb switched on” as it
was for the editors once we began to think this way. For others, the reaction was either
so what, or down right hostile (Slattery, 2002). To some extent, the different reactions
to the book are a by-product of perceptions, political stances and philosophical
positions adopted by the commentators. Some are clearly locked into traditional
models of hospitality management education, concerned with immediate relevance to
the industry. Re?ecting the closed system of thinking and discourse observed by
Botterill as mentioned earlier. Others however, recognise the value of developing a
theoretical underpinning to the ?eld which moves away from mere applied
management studies. The development of re?ective practitioners (Schon, 1983) or
even “philosophical practitioners” (Tribe, 2002) requires a more rounded appreciation
of the ?eld than merely developing the skills to manage.
Far from being another arcane academic argument of little value or little importance
to the hospitality industry or to management practice, the study of hospitality from
these more tangential perspectives is essential for future academic understandings
and the building of competitive strategy within commercial organisations. Through a
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better understanding of the provision of hospitality and acts of hospitableness,
commercial organisations are better able to recognise the emotional experiences
involved and ensure that management practice focuses on their production. Hospitality
involves more than a service encounter (Lashley et al., 2005) and concepts of hospitality
can be used to build loyal customers as “commercial friends” (Lashley and Morrison,
2003).
The work of Derrida has been in?uential on a range of social science academics, and
many of the contributions to the “Mobilising Hospitality; The Ethics of Social
Relations” (Garcia and Crang, 2005) were informed by Derrida writings on hospitality.
In addition, historians (Walton, 1983, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2005) philosophers (Telfer, 1996,
2000) and those writing on comparative literature (Rosello, 2001) also write about
hospitality. Some use Derrida’s work, others build on it. Although the guest host
relationship central to the study of hospitality overlaps with tourism, social science
studies have used hospitality concepts to explore the relationship between host
communities and their relationships with non-hosts (Hage, 2005; Molz, 2005; Garcia
and Crang, 2005). Robinson et al. (2005) provided some interesting insights into
hospitality by the use of literary criticism to analyse two poems. The key point is that
there is a growing interest in hospitality as an academic subject from a wide range of
academic disciplines and that academics in the “hospitality management” ?eld need to
engage with these.
Earlier observations (Lashley, 2000) suggested that hospitality could be conceived
of and studied in three domains which are independent of each other but which overlap
shown visually as a Venn diagram. Admittedly, this was a somewhat crude and over
simplistic representation, but the three domains do provide a framework for analysis
and discussion of current work as well as future directions for research activity. In
other words, the study of hospitality can encompass the social cultural contexts of
hospitality, the practice of hospitality in private domestic settings and the commercial
setting of hospitality. The bene?t of the Venn image is that these three domains are not
hermetically sealed but overlap and inform each other, and that studies can focus on
any one of a range of overlapping relationships.
Although the notion of the social or cultural domain have caused some
commentators dif?culty (Brotherton, 2002), the study of the responsibilities
associated with being a good host are a feature of social constructs which are rooted
in a society’s culture. In so-called modern societies the duty to protect guests, to
provide succour, to take in the poor and share food and drink and provide secure
accommodation to guests are much less explicitly pronounced than in pre-industrial
societies. The strength of these obligations are, however, still relevant today in many
parts of the world. At the time of writing, for example, the person responsible for
betraying Sadam Hussein’s sons to US forces in Iraq is himself a fugitive, because his
tribe claim that he dishonoured them by betraying his two guests to their enemy. He
broke the tribe’s sacred code of hospitality, to provide protection to those who were
guests in his own home. In this case, the two sons were killed during the attack by
US troops on the house in which they were sheltering.
The changing nature of perceptions of guests and the rigidity of obligations for
hosts to meet socially de?ned standards of hospitality is an important issue for future
research in host and guest relations. Evidence from British history suggests that social
and cultural obligations to be hospitable lasted into the medieval period but began to
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break down in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several of Shakespeare’s plays
use the dishonouring of the laws of hospitality as a device to increase the villainy of a
character’s actions – the killing of Duncan whilst a guest in Macbeth’s house, the
blinding of Buckingham by King Lear’s sons-in law leads him to cry out, “But you
are my guests”. Contemporary audiences would have understood that these acts were
breaking the laws of both hosts – to protect their guests, and of guests to act
honourably to their hosts. Obligations in Western societies to behave honourably as
guest or host have nothing like the same cultural sanction as they once had.
To some extent these obligations to be hospitable have changed as a result of
increased travel and the emergence of commercial provision to support travellers has
developed. Certainly, there are important lessons to be learnt from the study of the
social and cultural domain of hospitality. Firstly, different societies will have degrees
of culturally de?ned obligations to be hospitable. Some cultures will require
individuals to meet certain levels of expectation to offer hospitality to strangers. Thus,
different societies will be more or less predisposed to be hospitable to the
stranger/tourist. Secondly, obligations to offer hospitality to strangers changes over
time. Increased contact with visitors seems, particularly in commercial tourist
contexts, can also change these obligations to be hospitable. Familiarity, it seems, can
breed contempt. Thirdly, it is possible to re-introduce frontline hospitality and tourist
staff to these obligations to be hospitable through training and management practice.
Walton’s (1983, 2005) various works on the history of British seaside resorts con?rms
the reluctance of sections of the seaside host community to accept visitors. Local
populations made up of large numbers retirees, for example, often acted as a brake on
the ability of the local tourism industry to adapt and change with changes in consumer
demands. Retirees, making up a political lobby, would actively limit tourism industry
attempts to attract more tourists to the town.
The private domain of hospitality has inspired some interesting studies over recent
years. On one level, the private/domestic domain is an important arena for learning
about receiving guests and the obligations of the host. Half the accounts of “special
meal occasions” (Lashley et al., 2005) were located in domestic settings, and the
language of domestic hospitality was used to evaluate hospitality in commercial
settings, “they made me feel at home” for example. O’Mahony’s (2003) pro?le of ?ve
leading restaurateurs in Australia suggested that learning about food and dining in the
home was a common source of inspiration. In some cases, learning to cook with a
mother or grandmother was important source of skill. In other cases, the experience of
food and drink, and hosting, provided a source of inspiration that became invaluable
when they entered the restaurant business.
On another level, many hospitality businesses are themselves “commercial homes”
(Lynch and MacWhannell, 2000). Commercial homes (Lynch, 2005) in guest houses, bed
breakfasts establishments, farm-stay properties and small hotels in particular involve
guests staying in the same dwelling as the host. Lynch and MacWhannell provide a
useful model for understanding the relationships between paying guests and hosts
depending on the degree to which they share domestic private space. Although the
interface between resident guest and host are at their sharpest in the accommodation
sector, pubs, inns and bars, and some restaurant and cafe´ businesses have close links
between the home and the commercial activity.
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Internationally it is a truism to say that micro-?rms dominate hospitality provision.
Despite the rapid growth of large ?rms with major market shares in all sectors, over 70
percent of the ?rms in accommodation, food and drink provision typically employ ten
or fewer employees. Very substantial numbers of these ?rms employ no staff outside of
immediate family and friends (Getz et al., 2004). Most importantly, few have classically
entrepreneurial business motives. In their study of 1396 micro-?rms in hospitality and
tourism in the UK Thomas et al. (2000) found that fewer than one in eight registered “to
make a lot of money” as one of their main reasons for being in business. They are
“lifestyle” ?rms who want to have more control of their lives, or who “like the life” and
“make a reasonable” living. Often the domestic setting is seen as “not having to work”
or presents a business opportunity where their life skills, learnt in the home provide
them with an opportunity to “work at home” (Lashley and Rowson, 2005). In their
recent exploration of 17 couples buying small hotels in Blackpool Lashley and Rowson
(2005) found that 16 had sold a domestic property, typically a three or four bedroom
house, to buy the Blackpool hotel. For many, owning a seaside hotel had been a
life-long dream. The overlaps between the commercial provisions within a domestic
setting, being paid to provide hospitality, are at the heart of these dreams.
These linkages between domestic and commercial domains in micro-?rms in
hospitality and tourism, has important implications for those attempting to provide
assistance to small ?rms in the sector, or to improve the quality of services experienced
by visitors. The business motives of lifestyle ?rms are more closely associated with a
personal and domestic agenda, and do not readily recognise the need for formal
management practices. In many cases, high levels of business failure and churn in
ownership have a negative effect on overall business development for the tourism
pro?le of the destination. For example, estimates of the change in ownership of
Blackpool hotels was conservatively estimated at 20 percent per year, though some
professionals suggested it could be as high as 50 percent (Lashley and Rowson, 2005),
whilst estimates of changes in pub tenancies in the UK were thought to be in the region
of 30 percent per year (Lashley and Rowson, 2001).
There has been on-going debate, in particular, about the extent to which commercial
hospitality can be authentic when compared with private hospitality. Warde and
Martens (2001) for example, in their interviews covering dining experiences said that
interviewees tended to regard commercial dining experiences as being less authentic
than those in domestic settings. Certainly, the philosophy of hospitableness suggests
that the ulterior motives associated with commercial hospitality might reduce the
genuine quality of hospitableness. Whilst recognising this as a potential tendency,
Telfer (2000) suggests that it is not inevitable that commercial hospitality is
inhospitable. She suggests that individuals who are naturally hospitable may be
attracted to work in the sector and provide hospitable behaviour. She also points out
that many small ?rms may be operated for other than commercial reasons and these
may offer genuinely hospitable experiences. Lashley et al. (2005) found that
interviewees were able to recognise hospitality experiences as being genuine in both
commercial and domestic settings. When asked to recount their most memorable meal
experiences about half the occasions were in domestic settings, whilst the other half
was set in commercial settings. Interestingly, both appeared to be recognised as having
authenticity, though the language of domestic hospitality was used to evaluate
experiences in commercial settings. Emotional requirements to feel safe and secure,
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welcome and genuinely valued dominate the assessment of authenticity in both
settings. Ritzer (1993) suggests that there are McDonaldizing and globalizing
tendencies, particularly in corporate hospitality provision that will create increased
inhospitable hospitality in the commercial sector. The relationship, therefore, between
private and commercial settings of hospitality provides some interesting insights into
hospitality and some exciting avenues for research.
The commercial domain is clearly in?uenced by these social and cultural, and
domestic domains of hospitality. It is important that those studying hospitality
recognise the interplay of both the cultural and domestic on the commercial provision
of hospitality. It is also important that commercial providers develop a more subtle
understanding of hospitality so as to focus on building long-term customer
relationships. Successful hosts are able to engage customers on an emotional and
personal level, which creates feelings of friendship and loyalty amongst guests. Telfer
is correct in saying that commercial hospitality need not be inevitably inhospitable;
there are many examples of those managing hotels, pubs and restaurants that provide
generous and warm feelings amongst their clients because they recognize the key
importance of customer experiences, and the need for these to be genuinely felt. On the
other, Ritzer makes a powerful criticism of corporate providers who ultimately
prioritise shareholder interests above those of guests/customers, employees, and other
stakeholders.
Conclusion
The study of hospitality and hospitableness is dynamic and changing in scope and
direction. For those immediately concerned with the education of managers for the
hospitality industry, the curriculum must include topics which, at least, develop
re?ective practitioners. The somewhat prosaic syllabus dominated by the “tyranny of
relevance” (Airey and Tribe, 2000; Lashley, 2005) no longer meets the needs of
managers destined to work in an industry where change is endemic. An understanding
of hospitality developed through the study of the subject from a range of social science
and arts perspectives has the ability to educate future practitioners, not just through
new knowledge, but also through new ways of thinking. The need to round out
the curriculum becomes even more urgent if we accept Tribes (2002) notion that the
“re?ective practitioner” fails to address philosophical and political issues. Future
managers will be required to “philosophical practitioners” capable of making ethical
decisions about conducting commercial business organisations in ways that are
sustainable.
Beyond this, the study of hospitality affords an opportunity to examine host
communities and their relationship with guests as tourists, migrants, asylum seekers,
or near neighbours. Hospitality as a social lens enables the study of communities to
accept or reject strangers, to see the strangers as enemy or friend. Interestingly, the
study of colonialism and migration from metropole countries frequently involves
relationships that can be evaluated through guest and host relations. Colonial
expansion to the Southern Hemisphere often involved indigenous populations being
welcoming hosts, only to have their land taken away by their guests. In fact a piece by
O’Mahony (2006) suggests that the English colonialists were both bad guests stealing
their host’s land, and bad hosts by excluding Irish migrants from positions of colonial
power. And coming full circle, created the circumstances whereby many Irish migrants
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became leading ?gures in the Melbourne hotel industry, thereby becomes hosts to
English colonialist guests.
This paper suggests that critical theory provides a collective body of philosophical
perspectives, concepts and analytical tools through which to explore relationships
between hosts and guests, hospitality, and acts of hospitableness. Critical theory
covers an array of perspectives which are essentially hermeneutic and provide insights
beyond some of the more positivistic approaches which stem from the hospitality
industry and the management of hospitality provided in commercial operations in
hotels, bars and restaurants. Critical theory encourages ways of thinking about the
world that ultimately enable us to study hospitality as both an industry and a human
phenomenon, and beyond this, to use hospitality as a tool to study society itself.
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Selwyn, T. (2000), “An anthropology of hospitality”, in Lashley, C. and Morrison, A. (Eds),
In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates, Butterworth-Heinemann,
Oxford.
Sim, S. and van Loon, B. (2001), Introducing Critical Theory, Icon Books, Royston.
Corresponding author
Conrad Lashley can be contacted at: [email protected]; [email protected]
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This article has been cited by:
1. Asli D.A. Tasci, Kelly J. Semrad. 2016. Developing a scale of hospitableness: A tale of two worlds.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 53, 30-41. [CrossRef]
2. Hamida Skandrani, Mariem KamounHospitality Meanings and Consequences Among Hotels Employees
and Guests 147-156. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] [PDF]
3. Carmen Padin, Goran Svensson. 2014. Hospitality processes through the lens of teleological actions
– framework and illustration. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 8:3,
361-371. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
4. Frans Melissen. 2013. Sustainable hospitality: a meaningful notion?. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 21,
810-824. [CrossRef]
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doc_425635454.pdf
This discussion paper aims to provide an introduction to revised ways of understanding
and approaching the study of hospitality.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Discovering hospitality: observations from recent research
Conrad Lashley
Article information:
To cite this document:
Conrad Lashley, (2007),"Discovering hospitality: observations from recent research", International J ournal
of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 1 Iss 3 pp. 214 - 226
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506180710817747
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International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 1 Iss 3 pp. 189-202 http://
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Bob Brotherton, (1999),"Towards a definitive view of the nature of hospitality and hospitality management",
International J ournal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 11 Iss 4 pp. 165-173 http://
dx.doi.org/10.1108/09596119910263568
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Discovering hospitality:
observations from recent
research
Conrad Lashley
Nottingham Business School, Centre for Leisure Retailing,
Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This discussion paper aims to provide an introduction to revised ways of understanding
and approaching the study of hospitality.
Design/methodology/approach – In addition to the consideration of hospitality from an array of
social science and arts perspectives, the paper advocates an engagement with critical studies tools and
concepts. These perspectives allow the study of hospitality which is critical to the deconstruction of
meanings of hospitality, and to present an array of insights which better inform visions of the subject.
Findings – The paper discusses the importance of critical thinking and outlines three philosophical
positions relating to the study of hospitality and hospitality organisations. It suggests that too much
academic research appears managerial in focus and is weakened by the lack of critical ways of
thinking about hospitality. In particular, the paper goes on to highlight recent developments in
hospitality research which are informed by different social science perspectives.
Research limitations/implications – The study is based on a literature review though informed
by a number of research projects. Future research projects picking up on the interplay between
cultural, domestic and commercial hospitality contexts are major implications of this paper.
Practical implications – The paper implies that commercial and educational hospitality practice
would be better informed by both critical perspectives and reference to a number of social science and
arts perspectives on hospitality. Competitive business strategies based on customer quality
experiences will in future need to be informed by these perspectives.
Originality/value – This paper provides a unique overview of hospitality informed both by
hospitality research for careers in hospitality and the study of hospitality as a social interaction. As
such it has value to both industry practitioners and to academics interested in studying hospitality and
hospitableness.
Keywords Hospitality services, Society, Hospitality management
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Since, the publication of In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates
(Lashley and Morrison, 2000) there has been growing international interest in the study
of hospitality from a number of social science perspectives. The original discussion
group was based on academics from the ?eld of hospitality management education, but
increasingly the study of hospitality has included academics from many ?elds in the
social sciences and arts. A recent conference (September, 2005) at the University of
Lancaster, for example, was attended by over 30 academics from a range of social
science disciplines. In fact, there have been publications on hospitality contexts by
sociologist, philosophers and historians as well as from literary criticism. This paper is
intended to re?ect the potential value of studying hospitality from perspectives not
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-6182.htm
IJCTHR
1,3
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Received January 2007
Revised March 2007
Accepted April 2007
International Journal of Culture,
Tourism and Hospitality Research
Vol. 1 No. 3, 2007
pp. 214-226
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6182
DOI 10.1108/17506180710817747
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traditionally concerned with management of commercial hospitality service
organisations.
In addition, there has been a growing debate within the hospitality management
?eld of study that a critical perspective needs to inform the intellectual stance adopted
in research and teaching activities, and that critical thinking skills should be developed
in students being prepared for careers in the sector. Morrison and O’Mahony (2002,
p. 196) in their discussion of a liberal approach to undergraduate education for the
hospitality programmes ?nalised their discussion by saying:
However, it is proposed that there is potential that traditional management may be
challenged, inherited rituals questioned, and breakout from historical mindsets achieved to
revitalise the future rather than simply replicate the past.
Botterill (2000, p. 194) goes on to suggest that the status of the ?eld could be increased,
“Critical social science promises, therefore, to provoke, in this case to raise the status of
hospitality and thereby elevate the interests it represents, including, ironically, the
hospitality industry”.
At root the study of hospitality as a human phenomenon involves the relationship
between hosts and guests. As such the study involves three broad dimensions which
were outlined in “In Search”. Although some have found this framework dif?cult to
accept, or too crude (Slattery, 2002; Brotherton, 2002), it does provide an attempt at a
framework within which to locate the study of hospitality. At a social and cultural
level, different societies require varying degrees of obligation to be hospitable with
duties and obligations on both guests and hosts. Importantly, these obligations do
change over time as a result of “modernity” or increased contact with tourists. Many of
those approaching the study of hospitality from social science disciplines are interested
in relationships between host communities and between tourists, but also migrants and
asylum seekers (Hage, 2005; Molz, 2005; Garcia and Crang, 2005). On the private or
domestic level individuals learn about hospitality in the home settings which can be
seen as producing a more genuine and authentic hospitality. In addition, the dominant
numbers of small hospitality ?rms offering food and drink, and/or accommodation are
in, many ways, a form of “commercial home” where the commercial activities are
intrinsically interwoven within the domestic and private setting. Also in commercial
dimension of hospitality (and related tourism) activities, the study of host and guest
relations, together with an understanding of the emotional dimensions present in
hospitality service interactions, can better inform the development of effective
competitive strategy.
Critical perspectives
For those immediately concerned with the education of hospitality management
practitioners, broadening the study of hospitality to incorporate more liberal, social
science and critical perspectives can better inform the management of hospitality
(Brotherton and Wood, 2000; Morrison, 2002). Morrison (2002, p. 163) says, “If
hospitality management research is to progress, those associated with it must re?ect
more deeply over its essential nature and practical manifestations” and Brotherton and
Wood (2000) argue that there is an urgent need for both researchers and practitioners
to challenge complacency and unquestioning mindsets. Morrison (2002, p. 163) goes on
to say that as a ?eld of study hospitality, “. . . may bene?t from introspection in the
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sense that it’s very epistemological basis and the conceptualization of its nature,
incidence and forms . . . to liberate it from current functionalism”. Whilst much
academic provision is largely concerned with programmes of management
development, the nature of the academic ?eld of hospitality is at the heart of
programmes of study. Fundamentally, hospitality must be established on a sound
social science base. The current preoccupation with management and relevance to
industry is an intellectual cul-de-sac, or as Botterill (2000, p. 193) describes it, “a closed
expert system in which experts speak to experts in an ever decreasing circle, defending
conventional ways of gaining knowledge”. Greater understanding of and contact with
academics in the social science and arts is essential if the hospitality ?eld of study is to
escape this closed system. In particular, engagement with critical perspectives is
crucial to future development, because a consequence of the closed system is that
conventionalism limits imagination and endeavor.
The study of research on “human resource management” in the hospitality sector
(Lashley and Watson, 1999) con?rmed many of these more generic observations. Much
of the applied research studying the management of people within the hospitality
industry was accused of being concerned with a managerial agenda, namely concerned
with identifying current problems in the management of people within these
organisations and attempting to provide answers to assist managers in being more
effective. In fact a trawl through any current issues of the key refereed research
journals in the hospitality ?eld of study con?rms the dominance of technocratic and
pragmatic research topics aimed at informing management practice without ever, or
rarely, questioning the nature of management, the consequences of organisational
power in hospitality businesses, or the potential cultural and political barriers to these
pragmatic and technocratic interventions.
Fox’s (1974) observation on differing perspectives on organisations and
organisational research is potentially useful because it presents a number of
different philosophical and political perspectives. Originally employed to dissect
commentaries on industrial relations and industrial con?ict, it does provide a useful
way of considering the stance taken by researchers in relation to applied organisation
research. Using this framework it is possible to criticise much applied hospitality
research as presenting a somewhat unitary view of the organisation and decisions
which managers make about organisation management. An assumption implicit in
much research is that hospitality organisations are peopled by individuals who have a
unity of interests in the organisation’s success. Whilst this may be the case on one level
of analysis, it is but one of several perspectives of the nature of hospitality work
organisations. Dominant management practice which makes little attempt to consult
with or involve subordinates in decision-making, re?ects the unitary perspective
amongst management practitioners in industry. Perhaps, as a consequence, much of
the research outputs demonstrate a unitary perspective in that there is a general
unwillingness to recognise hospitality organisations as involving con?icts between
people in different position within the structure. The management of organisations is
assumed to be essentially rational and devoid of political choices – technicians merely
making technical choices in the best interests of all.
Fox’s (1974) suggests that it is important to recognise that there are likely to be
con?icting needs and interests held by people in different positions within the
organisation. Thus, a more pluralistic analysis suggests that managers and owners on
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one hand and employees on the other have quite different sets of needs from the
organisation. The link between pay, costs and pro?ts, and terms and conditions of
employment are just two examples of issues where employers and the employed have
different, and thereby potentially con?icting, needs. There are also potential differing
needs and con?icts of interests between customers and owners, and between customers
and employees. The pluralistic perspective encourages research and analysis which
conceives organisation management as fundamentally problematic because of the
plurality of interests which are involved. Recent practice by bench mark organisations
to adopt balanced sore card approaches to assessing organisational performance from
a range of stakeholder perspectives is an example of management practice being
informed by this pluralist perspective. Certainly interest in studying the adaptability of
host communities to absorb the movement of the non-host communities through
tourism, migration or seeking of asylum can be studies though the perspectives of the
various parties involved.
Similarly, a radical pluralist views con?ict between those who own and manage
business and those who work in them as endemic to the nature of employment
relationships in modern capitalistic economies. Under this analysis, hospitality
organisations and the techniques which are both advocated and introduced for their
management are bound to result in con?icts between the key participants. Under this
analysis, research into the management of both employees and customer experiences
within hospitality organisations should be as much concerned with conditions which
sti?e and suppress con?ict, as they are with techniques which are designed to win
greater employee and customer commitment. Radical pluralist perspectives are
fundamentally critical in stance and see organisations as political arenas, subjecting all
actions to Seneca’s famous question, “Cui bono?” (Who bene?ts?). Managers make
decisions which represent one of a number of options and a critical analysis is as
concerned with the decisions and choices not made as it is with those selected. Radical
pluralist investigations into community responses to strangers frequently point to the
use of migrant labour as a way of disciplining labour markets by reducing the
bargaining power of host community labour. Migrant labour can frequently be bought
for a lower price and ?ows of migrants increases the supply of labour. Both have the
effect of reducing the market price for labour and limiting the ability of the work force
to push up wages.
Recent debates about hospitality management practice which despite the rhetoric of
the value of both internal and external customers, continues to prioritize short-term
cost management can be better informed from a critical perspective. Lucas (2004)
suggests the existence of two different approaches as high- and low-road employment
practices. Whilst she acknowledges that some ?rms do adopt a more high-road
approach, she also suggests that few US and British workplaces are managed in this
manner. She goes on to suggest that one reason for this is that labour costs are more
easily manipulated than other semi-variable or ?xed costs and this leads to a situation
where “actions will be driven by short-term ?nancial targets, and working to budgets
will drive a short-term employment relations agenda, encouraging low road practices”
(Lucas, 2004, p. 65). In stakeholder terms, priority is given to shareholder/owner’s
interests over those of employee and customer stakeholders. High road practices
prioritise customer and employee stakeholder interests. In the long-run it is said that all
stakeholders bene?t but managers are locked into reporting systems which give
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priority to ?nancial performance, trading period results, and shareholder interests.
Using Fox’s model of analysis, unitary perspectives dominate management practice
and few recognise even the potential plurality of interests within hospitality
organisations. Academic commentators must go beyond both these positions.
Botterill (2000, p. 194), for example discussing the mismatch between the economic
importance of hospitality and tourism and their low-political status as industries, says:
To understand the mismatch between economic importance and political status requires a
Marxist sense of the objectivity of the ideological structure. In this case an ideology that
clearly contains an implicit ranking of economic activity and subordinates hospitality to
other dominant interests despite the fact that it has over taken those economic interests in
importance. The social actors who construct the meaning of hospitality become, therefore, the
target for the politically-re?ective practice of critical social science whose aim is to transform.
Critical theory has a long tradition in the social sciences, often opposing approaches to
social science research which were based on the natural sciences. These more
positivistic approaches to social issues frequently claimed a scienti?c value-free
neutrality, but which “became regarded as a form of covert ideology, which obscured
objections to a repressive social order by studying people as objects rather than
subjects, ignoring the subjective meanings in social actions” (Simons, 2004, p. 5). The
linkage between critical theory and explanations of social actions and forms in the way
they in?uence presuppositions about enquiry is an important one. Simons (2004, p. 6)
provides the following overview:
In a more general sense, however, critical social theory, refers to qualitative theories which
adopt hermeneutic strategies in seeking to interpret and understand social action in contrast
to quantitative approaches, and at the same time evaluate as well as describe and explain
social action.
Critical theory enables the study of hospitality through the meanings associated with
by the various participants in hospitality transactions. Lynch’s (2005) work exploring
the experiences of being a guest in small hotels and guests houses, for example,
provides insights into the use of public and private spaces in the commercial home
sector. He suggests that there are some interesting con?icts of meanings and intents
between hosts and guests. Often guests chose this form of accommodation because
they wish to experience “genuine hospitality” with a “real family” whilst hosts
frequently want to maintain their own private space which is excluded from their
paying guests.
Randall’s (2000) work on the meanings created by television food programmes also
adopts a critical theory perspective. She uses the work of Bourdieu, developed to
analyse literary and cultural outputs to be able point to signs and signi?ers that
develop meanings. Similarly work on special meal occasions (Lashley et al., 2005) also
employs semiotic analysis so as to build a picture of the ways individuals recount
special meal occasions. Many of these techniques have been used in developing
analysis of media outputs in print and broadcast media. Critical theory is able to show
how media production, despite claims for independence, frequently creates an
impression of inevitability of existing social and political structures.
The use of the term hospitality to describe commercial hotel and catering activities
is an interesting example of the use of language to in?uence social meanings and
perceptions of activities. Hospitality emerged in the USA in the late 1970s/early 1980s
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as a label for the industry, for the title of academic journals and subsequently for the
?eld of study and for academic departments, programmes and subject associations.
Taking a more interpretive approach allows recognition of the word to convey
meanings in?uenced by cultural, historical, domestic and everyday meanings of
hospitality to describe activities which are founded on commercial relationships. The
“hospitality industry” suggests a relational dimension, that of offering hospitality, and
its associated bene?ts of welcome, of security, of being a revered guest, etc. Hotels,
restaurants and bars on the other hand are establishments which are recognised as
offering goods and services at a price. Hospitality allows impressions to be created of
emotional needs being met and bene?ts beyond the merely commercial. At the same
time, hospitality has allowed academics to engage with a discourse that explores these
wider meanings beyond the commercial spin intended in the ?rst instance. Hospitality,
therefore, represents an interesting paradox, as originally intended, it was obfuscating
and designed to mask the commercial purpose of the sector, yet at the same time it has
opened up a rich radical route of enquiry that can be used as a critique of commercial
organisational practice.
A critical theory approach to hospitality is not out of step with most other topics in
social sciences and the arts. Simons (2004, p. 8) says:
The bigger picture is that critical theory made inroads into almost all of the arts and social
science departments during the 1980s and 1990s from accountancy to art history, from
management to media, from religious studies to rhetoric.
Like other ?elds of study, critical theory within the hospitality ?eld should at least be
recognised as part of the intellectual terrain. A critical understanding of hospitality
enriches our collective understanding of the whole and thereby recognise a world of
ideas which extend beyond mere pragmatism and “how to do” mind sets.
The study of hospitality
Reactions to the direction of discussions and debates opened up by In Search of
Hospitality Theoretical Perspectives and Debates have been interesting if somewhat
diverse. For many academics in the hospitality management ?eld across the globe, the
impact of the book was described as being like having “a light bulb switched on” as it
was for the editors once we began to think this way. For others, the reaction was either
so what, or down right hostile (Slattery, 2002). To some extent, the different reactions
to the book are a by-product of perceptions, political stances and philosophical
positions adopted by the commentators. Some are clearly locked into traditional
models of hospitality management education, concerned with immediate relevance to
the industry. Re?ecting the closed system of thinking and discourse observed by
Botterill as mentioned earlier. Others however, recognise the value of developing a
theoretical underpinning to the ?eld which moves away from mere applied
management studies. The development of re?ective practitioners (Schon, 1983) or
even “philosophical practitioners” (Tribe, 2002) requires a more rounded appreciation
of the ?eld than merely developing the skills to manage.
Far from being another arcane academic argument of little value or little importance
to the hospitality industry or to management practice, the study of hospitality from
these more tangential perspectives is essential for future academic understandings
and the building of competitive strategy within commercial organisations. Through a
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better understanding of the provision of hospitality and acts of hospitableness,
commercial organisations are better able to recognise the emotional experiences
involved and ensure that management practice focuses on their production. Hospitality
involves more than a service encounter (Lashley et al., 2005) and concepts of hospitality
can be used to build loyal customers as “commercial friends” (Lashley and Morrison,
2003).
The work of Derrida has been in?uential on a range of social science academics, and
many of the contributions to the “Mobilising Hospitality; The Ethics of Social
Relations” (Garcia and Crang, 2005) were informed by Derrida writings on hospitality.
In addition, historians (Walton, 1983, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2005) philosophers (Telfer, 1996,
2000) and those writing on comparative literature (Rosello, 2001) also write about
hospitality. Some use Derrida’s work, others build on it. Although the guest host
relationship central to the study of hospitality overlaps with tourism, social science
studies have used hospitality concepts to explore the relationship between host
communities and their relationships with non-hosts (Hage, 2005; Molz, 2005; Garcia
and Crang, 2005). Robinson et al. (2005) provided some interesting insights into
hospitality by the use of literary criticism to analyse two poems. The key point is that
there is a growing interest in hospitality as an academic subject from a wide range of
academic disciplines and that academics in the “hospitality management” ?eld need to
engage with these.
Earlier observations (Lashley, 2000) suggested that hospitality could be conceived
of and studied in three domains which are independent of each other but which overlap
shown visually as a Venn diagram. Admittedly, this was a somewhat crude and over
simplistic representation, but the three domains do provide a framework for analysis
and discussion of current work as well as future directions for research activity. In
other words, the study of hospitality can encompass the social cultural contexts of
hospitality, the practice of hospitality in private domestic settings and the commercial
setting of hospitality. The bene?t of the Venn image is that these three domains are not
hermetically sealed but overlap and inform each other, and that studies can focus on
any one of a range of overlapping relationships.
Although the notion of the social or cultural domain have caused some
commentators dif?culty (Brotherton, 2002), the study of the responsibilities
associated with being a good host are a feature of social constructs which are rooted
in a society’s culture. In so-called modern societies the duty to protect guests, to
provide succour, to take in the poor and share food and drink and provide secure
accommodation to guests are much less explicitly pronounced than in pre-industrial
societies. The strength of these obligations are, however, still relevant today in many
parts of the world. At the time of writing, for example, the person responsible for
betraying Sadam Hussein’s sons to US forces in Iraq is himself a fugitive, because his
tribe claim that he dishonoured them by betraying his two guests to their enemy. He
broke the tribe’s sacred code of hospitality, to provide protection to those who were
guests in his own home. In this case, the two sons were killed during the attack by
US troops on the house in which they were sheltering.
The changing nature of perceptions of guests and the rigidity of obligations for
hosts to meet socially de?ned standards of hospitality is an important issue for future
research in host and guest relations. Evidence from British history suggests that social
and cultural obligations to be hospitable lasted into the medieval period but began to
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break down in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several of Shakespeare’s plays
use the dishonouring of the laws of hospitality as a device to increase the villainy of a
character’s actions – the killing of Duncan whilst a guest in Macbeth’s house, the
blinding of Buckingham by King Lear’s sons-in law leads him to cry out, “But you
are my guests”. Contemporary audiences would have understood that these acts were
breaking the laws of both hosts – to protect their guests, and of guests to act
honourably to their hosts. Obligations in Western societies to behave honourably as
guest or host have nothing like the same cultural sanction as they once had.
To some extent these obligations to be hospitable have changed as a result of
increased travel and the emergence of commercial provision to support travellers has
developed. Certainly, there are important lessons to be learnt from the study of the
social and cultural domain of hospitality. Firstly, different societies will have degrees
of culturally de?ned obligations to be hospitable. Some cultures will require
individuals to meet certain levels of expectation to offer hospitality to strangers. Thus,
different societies will be more or less predisposed to be hospitable to the
stranger/tourist. Secondly, obligations to offer hospitality to strangers changes over
time. Increased contact with visitors seems, particularly in commercial tourist
contexts, can also change these obligations to be hospitable. Familiarity, it seems, can
breed contempt. Thirdly, it is possible to re-introduce frontline hospitality and tourist
staff to these obligations to be hospitable through training and management practice.
Walton’s (1983, 2005) various works on the history of British seaside resorts con?rms
the reluctance of sections of the seaside host community to accept visitors. Local
populations made up of large numbers retirees, for example, often acted as a brake on
the ability of the local tourism industry to adapt and change with changes in consumer
demands. Retirees, making up a political lobby, would actively limit tourism industry
attempts to attract more tourists to the town.
The private domain of hospitality has inspired some interesting studies over recent
years. On one level, the private/domestic domain is an important arena for learning
about receiving guests and the obligations of the host. Half the accounts of “special
meal occasions” (Lashley et al., 2005) were located in domestic settings, and the
language of domestic hospitality was used to evaluate hospitality in commercial
settings, “they made me feel at home” for example. O’Mahony’s (2003) pro?le of ?ve
leading restaurateurs in Australia suggested that learning about food and dining in the
home was a common source of inspiration. In some cases, learning to cook with a
mother or grandmother was important source of skill. In other cases, the experience of
food and drink, and hosting, provided a source of inspiration that became invaluable
when they entered the restaurant business.
On another level, many hospitality businesses are themselves “commercial homes”
(Lynch and MacWhannell, 2000). Commercial homes (Lynch, 2005) in guest houses, bed
breakfasts establishments, farm-stay properties and small hotels in particular involve
guests staying in the same dwelling as the host. Lynch and MacWhannell provide a
useful model for understanding the relationships between paying guests and hosts
depending on the degree to which they share domestic private space. Although the
interface between resident guest and host are at their sharpest in the accommodation
sector, pubs, inns and bars, and some restaurant and cafe´ businesses have close links
between the home and the commercial activity.
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Internationally it is a truism to say that micro-?rms dominate hospitality provision.
Despite the rapid growth of large ?rms with major market shares in all sectors, over 70
percent of the ?rms in accommodation, food and drink provision typically employ ten
or fewer employees. Very substantial numbers of these ?rms employ no staff outside of
immediate family and friends (Getz et al., 2004). Most importantly, few have classically
entrepreneurial business motives. In their study of 1396 micro-?rms in hospitality and
tourism in the UK Thomas et al. (2000) found that fewer than one in eight registered “to
make a lot of money” as one of their main reasons for being in business. They are
“lifestyle” ?rms who want to have more control of their lives, or who “like the life” and
“make a reasonable” living. Often the domestic setting is seen as “not having to work”
or presents a business opportunity where their life skills, learnt in the home provide
them with an opportunity to “work at home” (Lashley and Rowson, 2005). In their
recent exploration of 17 couples buying small hotels in Blackpool Lashley and Rowson
(2005) found that 16 had sold a domestic property, typically a three or four bedroom
house, to buy the Blackpool hotel. For many, owning a seaside hotel had been a
life-long dream. The overlaps between the commercial provisions within a domestic
setting, being paid to provide hospitality, are at the heart of these dreams.
These linkages between domestic and commercial domains in micro-?rms in
hospitality and tourism, has important implications for those attempting to provide
assistance to small ?rms in the sector, or to improve the quality of services experienced
by visitors. The business motives of lifestyle ?rms are more closely associated with a
personal and domestic agenda, and do not readily recognise the need for formal
management practices. In many cases, high levels of business failure and churn in
ownership have a negative effect on overall business development for the tourism
pro?le of the destination. For example, estimates of the change in ownership of
Blackpool hotels was conservatively estimated at 20 percent per year, though some
professionals suggested it could be as high as 50 percent (Lashley and Rowson, 2005),
whilst estimates of changes in pub tenancies in the UK were thought to be in the region
of 30 percent per year (Lashley and Rowson, 2001).
There has been on-going debate, in particular, about the extent to which commercial
hospitality can be authentic when compared with private hospitality. Warde and
Martens (2001) for example, in their interviews covering dining experiences said that
interviewees tended to regard commercial dining experiences as being less authentic
than those in domestic settings. Certainly, the philosophy of hospitableness suggests
that the ulterior motives associated with commercial hospitality might reduce the
genuine quality of hospitableness. Whilst recognising this as a potential tendency,
Telfer (2000) suggests that it is not inevitable that commercial hospitality is
inhospitable. She suggests that individuals who are naturally hospitable may be
attracted to work in the sector and provide hospitable behaviour. She also points out
that many small ?rms may be operated for other than commercial reasons and these
may offer genuinely hospitable experiences. Lashley et al. (2005) found that
interviewees were able to recognise hospitality experiences as being genuine in both
commercial and domestic settings. When asked to recount their most memorable meal
experiences about half the occasions were in domestic settings, whilst the other half
was set in commercial settings. Interestingly, both appeared to be recognised as having
authenticity, though the language of domestic hospitality was used to evaluate
experiences in commercial settings. Emotional requirements to feel safe and secure,
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welcome and genuinely valued dominate the assessment of authenticity in both
settings. Ritzer (1993) suggests that there are McDonaldizing and globalizing
tendencies, particularly in corporate hospitality provision that will create increased
inhospitable hospitality in the commercial sector. The relationship, therefore, between
private and commercial settings of hospitality provides some interesting insights into
hospitality and some exciting avenues for research.
The commercial domain is clearly in?uenced by these social and cultural, and
domestic domains of hospitality. It is important that those studying hospitality
recognise the interplay of both the cultural and domestic on the commercial provision
of hospitality. It is also important that commercial providers develop a more subtle
understanding of hospitality so as to focus on building long-term customer
relationships. Successful hosts are able to engage customers on an emotional and
personal level, which creates feelings of friendship and loyalty amongst guests. Telfer
is correct in saying that commercial hospitality need not be inevitably inhospitable;
there are many examples of those managing hotels, pubs and restaurants that provide
generous and warm feelings amongst their clients because they recognize the key
importance of customer experiences, and the need for these to be genuinely felt. On the
other, Ritzer makes a powerful criticism of corporate providers who ultimately
prioritise shareholder interests above those of guests/customers, employees, and other
stakeholders.
Conclusion
The study of hospitality and hospitableness is dynamic and changing in scope and
direction. For those immediately concerned with the education of managers for the
hospitality industry, the curriculum must include topics which, at least, develop
re?ective practitioners. The somewhat prosaic syllabus dominated by the “tyranny of
relevance” (Airey and Tribe, 2000; Lashley, 2005) no longer meets the needs of
managers destined to work in an industry where change is endemic. An understanding
of hospitality developed through the study of the subject from a range of social science
and arts perspectives has the ability to educate future practitioners, not just through
new knowledge, but also through new ways of thinking. The need to round out
the curriculum becomes even more urgent if we accept Tribes (2002) notion that the
“re?ective practitioner” fails to address philosophical and political issues. Future
managers will be required to “philosophical practitioners” capable of making ethical
decisions about conducting commercial business organisations in ways that are
sustainable.
Beyond this, the study of hospitality affords an opportunity to examine host
communities and their relationship with guests as tourists, migrants, asylum seekers,
or near neighbours. Hospitality as a social lens enables the study of communities to
accept or reject strangers, to see the strangers as enemy or friend. Interestingly, the
study of colonialism and migration from metropole countries frequently involves
relationships that can be evaluated through guest and host relations. Colonial
expansion to the Southern Hemisphere often involved indigenous populations being
welcoming hosts, only to have their land taken away by their guests. In fact a piece by
O’Mahony (2006) suggests that the English colonialists were both bad guests stealing
their host’s land, and bad hosts by excluding Irish migrants from positions of colonial
power. And coming full circle, created the circumstances whereby many Irish migrants
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became leading ?gures in the Melbourne hotel industry, thereby becomes hosts to
English colonialist guests.
This paper suggests that critical theory provides a collective body of philosophical
perspectives, concepts and analytical tools through which to explore relationships
between hosts and guests, hospitality, and acts of hospitableness. Critical theory
covers an array of perspectives which are essentially hermeneutic and provide insights
beyond some of the more positivistic approaches which stem from the hospitality
industry and the management of hospitality provided in commercial operations in
hotels, bars and restaurants. Critical theory encourages ways of thinking about the
world that ultimately enable us to study hospitality as both an industry and a human
phenomenon, and beyond this, to use hospitality as a tool to study society itself.
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Oxford.
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Corresponding author
Conrad Lashley can be contacted at: [email protected]; [email protected]
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This article has been cited by:
1. Asli D.A. Tasci, Kelly J. Semrad. 2016. Developing a scale of hospitableness: A tale of two worlds.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 53, 30-41. [CrossRef]
2. Hamida Skandrani, Mariem KamounHospitality Meanings and Consequences Among Hotels Employees
and Guests 147-156. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] [PDF]
3. Carmen Padin, Goran Svensson. 2014. Hospitality processes through the lens of teleological actions
– framework and illustration. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 8:3,
361-371. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
4. Frans Melissen. 2013. Sustainable hospitality: a meaningful notion?. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 21,
810-824. [CrossRef]
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