Hospitality: A Discussion On History, Politics, And Culture In An Essay.

Discussion of whether commercial hospitality is just an extension of hospitality in the home

Discuss About The Hospitality History Politics And Culture?

It is a complex task to define hospitality, since various authors have suggested that it is a social as well as commercial activity. As per the view of Brotherton (2013), hospitality could be adjudged as contemporaneous trading amongst individuals, which is entered voluntarily along with developing to improve the mutual welfare of the parties associated with the provision of food, drink and accommodation. On the other hand, Coulson et al. (2014) are of the view that hospitality is an overlap of three spatial domains, which include social, private and commercial domains. The following essay would shed light on arguments suggesting that both common themes and values are inherent in hospitality in the home and commercial hospitality. It is simply not an annex; instead, it is viewed as its self-domain.

From the commercial perspective, hospitality could be explained as a formal and fair system associated with monetary swap, in which it is given in specific forms of institutions like inns and restaurants. However, these are considered as impersonal from the fundamental point of view. Thus, commercial hospitality varies from hospitality in the home, as it is an impersonal financial exchange, instead of providing personal food, accommodation and drink to the hosts.

In the words of Duncan, Scott and Baum (2013), commercial activity has originated in 2000 AD through the Mesopotamian research, in which the then prevailing laws used to control the inns and the hotels. Commercial activity depicting the current hospitality scenario like big hotels, beverage and food outlets have been invented in areas like Pompeii. Accounting to the literature, by 400 BC the commercial hospitality was crucial and mandatory to bring the tourists and traders in the areas as a major source of revenue (Van Dijck 2013). In investigating commercial hospitality, it is inherent that the industry has been distinct and separate from domestic hospitality.

The availability of commercial hospitality is for those individuals having no association with private hospitality or inadequately privileged in receiving the state hospitality. Consequently, Gibson (2016) stated that the ignobility of commercial hospitality is greater compared to the other kinds of hospitality. However, after the review of the history and evolution of commercial hospitality, greater amounts of judgemental literature have been found, which are not uncommon. The most significant point to mention from the above-stated literature is that commercial hospitality has not emerged in an unexpected fashion. The existence of this sector has been for nearly 4,000 years and the practice has been made across the industry, which could be segregated from domestic hospitality.

The Connection between Domestic and Commercial Hospitality

With the change in nature and motives of hospitality, there has been a requirement for a breadth in definition. Social hospitality could be viewed as social setting, where the acts of hospitality and hospitableness occur collectively with the social force effects on the manufacture of drink, food and accommodation. Social hospitality develops social ties between hosts and guests in relation to social ceremonies like christenings and weddings; thus, creating a feeling of togetherness.

As commented by Lashley and Morrison (2013), private domain includes the nurturing motives of those serving cook, beverages, entertainment, beds along with forming an effective environment. In this sphere, the friendly act is offered through providing food, accommodation and beverage. Friendly act offers a symbolic bond between those engaged to share hospitality for returning the favour along with hosting another occasion. Hence, within this domain of hospitality, the host plays a crucial role, which is obtained in turn without worrying for financial repayment. The values like kinship, hospitableness and social caring duty have evolved from hospitality in the home and these are found within the aspects of commercial and social hospitality. However, domestic hospitality helps in shaping the expectation of commercial and social hospitality activities, which signifies that there is a link between the three domains of hospitality.

Even though there is association between domestic hospitality and commercial hospitality, there is a major difference between the hospitality concept and commercial hospitality industry. This is because of the money involved and the guest-host association. In this context, Lovell (2015) cited that commercial hospitality is needed to have a particular type of association between guests and hosts where the hosts would obtain an insight of the ways to satisfy the guests along with raising their comfort level by possessing the capability in delivering seamless services. Thus, domestic hospitality depends on the reciprocity of friendship, while commercial hospitality depends on monetary exchange. Hence, a diverse kind of guest-host relationship takes place within commercial hospitality, since the customers need to incur money for the facilities available to them. In return, the host has the responsibility of delivering effective services for meeting the expectations and desires of the guests.

Hospitableness is an emotional and sincere kind of involvement, as it concentrates on the motivation and role of the host. From the historical perspective, commercial hospitality has been viewed as a mundane type of hospitality, in which food and drink has been provided with zero or minimal interaction between customers and staffs. Therefore, it has been recommended that commercial provision might not incorporate real hospitableness.

Hospitality in the Home and Commercial Hospitality

For instance, the Sebel Hotel in Surry Hills, Sydney offers a birthday cake and surprise for the guests on their special occasions. In this case, the staffs could deliver the cake personally with surprise along with singing happy birthday song for the guests and their acquaintances. In addition, they could be provided with an additional room upgrade and a champagne bottle. The inclusion of the cake depicting the domestic domain and the birthday celebration depicting the social domain has enabled for social and sincere involvement with the guests, which results in creation of hospitability. In return, the guests would appreciate this gesture, as they are probably to return along with spreading positive word of mouth

Home, on the other hand, is a place of residence, refuge and safety, which might be linked to a geographical area or no physical location (Lynch 2017). Home is viewed as a setting and it could be viewed as a hospitality setting. There is increasing flexibility between the home spaces because of technological innovation and the increasingly common merger of leisure and work.

A commercial home in the context of tourism and leisure takes into account a group of owner-occupied small-sized businesses like guesthouses providing food, drink and accommodation, comfort and safety along with bed and breakfasts (Molz 2014). The commercial homes intend to target different groups of consumers desiring for a high specialised experience and want to be welcome as guests, instead of customers. Under this situation, commercial homes could be argued as an extension of hospitality in the home, even though the basis of this host-guest association is developed on monetary exchange and not on friendly terms. Hence, a commercial home is just a combination of private and commercial domains minutely.

On the other hand, host denotes equalisation of a stranger to another host, allowing the same to stay protected along with providing guidance to the next destination (Osman, Johns and Lugosi 2014). The establishments of commercial hospitality like hotels intend to develop a home away from home for the guests along with accomplishing this by developing a positive hots-guest association by enabling them to feel protected and safe. In the current era, the hotels have emerged as functional places offering expected facilities like those one would find their houses. Furthermore, the individuals are converting their own houses into replica hotel suites; thus, bringing the fantasising aspect into their house lives.

In the words of Ryan (2015), popular hotels like Hilton have included extended up-stay residential suites to their range. For instance, it has formed Hilton Home 2 Suites for the long stay guests especially a house away from house. These suites are targeted mainly for the business travellers that prefer to stay above 10 nights in a hotel (Teng and Chang 2013). The visitors or guests are offered a suite having an attached kitchen, magazines and books tailored to them and complimentary breakfast at a reasonable price. It has been inherent that the individuals strive for domestic hospitality and in response; the commercial hospitality firms like Hilton have started to blend aspects of the private domain into the commercial activities.

In order to conclude, the insight of hospitality activities could be segregated into three different domains that include social, commercial and private or domestic domains. All these domains are different individually, as they hold identical values of hospitality like kinship, hospitableness and duty of care. The past commercial hospitality was seen as impersonal financial exchange. However, the concept of commercial hospitality has changed with the4 passage of time and the ways through which the integration of the three major domains has enhanced the activity of commercial hospitality. The fundamental distinction between hospitality in the home and commercial hospitality is due to the host-guest association. Within this domestic domain, an association depends on friendship, while a commercial association depends on monetary exchange. Hence, this depicts that commercial hospitality is distinguishable and it could be found in its own domain. It is not an extension of hospitality in the home.;

References:

Brotherton, B., 2013. Hospitality and hospitality. Search of Hospitality.

Coulson, A.B., MacLaren, A.C., McKenzie, S. and O'Gorman, K.D., 2014. Hospitality codes and social exchange theory: The Pashtunwali and tourism in Afghanistan. Tourism Management, 45, pp.134-141.

Duncan, T., Scott, D.G. and Baum, T., 2013. The mobilities of hospitality work: An exploration of issues and debates. Annals of Tourism Research, 41, pp.1-19.

Gibson, S., 2016. Mobilizing hospitality: The ethics of social relations in a mobile world. Routledge.

Lashley, C. and Morrison, A., 2013. In search of hospitality. Routledge.

Lovell, J., 2015. THE USES OF FOREIGNERS IN MAO-ERA CHINA:‘TECHNIQUES OF HOSPITALITY’AND INTERNATIONAL IMAGE-BUILDING IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, 1949–1976. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 25, pp.135-158.

Lynch, P., 2017. Mundane welcome: Hospitality as life politics. Annals of Tourism Research, 64, pp.174-184.

Molz, J.G., 2014. Toward a network hospitality. First Monday, 19(3).

Osman, H., Johns, N. and Lugosi, P., 2014. Commercial hospitality in destination experiences: McDonald's and tourists' consumption of space. Tourism Management, 42, pp.238-247.

Ryan, C., 2015. Trends in hospitality management research: a personal reflection. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.340-361.

Teng, C.C. and Chang, J.H., 2013. Mechanism of customer value in restaurant consumption: Employee hospitality and entertainment cues as boundary conditions. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, pp.169-178.

Van Dijck, J., 2013. The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford University Press.