Key Themes in Hospitality Management - sagepub.com · [16:37 12/12/2007 5047-Brotherton-Ch01.tex]...

[16:37 12/12/2007 5047-Brotherton-Ch01.tex] Job No: 5047 Brotherton: Hospitality Management (SAGE Handbook) Page: 35 35–61

PART ONE

Key Themes in HospitalityManagement


The Nature and Meanings of ‘Hospitality’

B o b B r o t h e r t o n a n d R o y C . W o o d

1

INTRODUCTION

In a volume such as this, devoted as it isto describing a field in state-of-the-art terms,it would be advantageous to pronounce thatdebates about the meaning and nature ofhospitality are at an advanced and sophisticatedstage. Sadly, the very opposite is true. To saythat the study of hospitality has received littlescholarly attention is to articulate a truism.Conceptual development is limited and indeed,systematic analysis of the phenomenon ofhospitality is almost completely absent. Theacademic literature that does exist is scattered,in terms of disciplinary origin, through time andin terms of loci of publication.

From the point of view of both the theory andpractice of ‘hospitality management’ this is bothironic and intellectually problematic. It is ironicbecause the term ‘hospitality management’has emerged globally, but with little apparentreflection as to meaning, as the preferred meansof describing the activities of those who provideand manage the provision of accommodation,food and related services in diverse commercial,non-commercial and voluntary contexts. It hascome to replace (though by no means univer-sally) such descriptive labels as ‘hotel man-agement’, ‘catering management’, ‘restaurantmanagement’ and ‘institutional management’.The irony lies in the fact that in presenting tothe world an idea of ‘hospitality management’there is little evident understanding of whathospitality ‘is’ in historical or philosophicalterms and little consistency in its application interms of the delivery of hospitality services. Thisirony is compounded by the observation that, ina simple commercial sense, the term ‘hospitality’offends against the principles of clarity ofmission and vision that have been promulgatedas central to modern business ideology andthe conduct of management. There is a further

suspicion that the Gadarene rush to adopt theterm ‘hospitality management’ has more to dowith efforts to professionalize the activities itis meant to embrace than with any meaningfulshift in the practice of those activities. Simplyput, ‘hospitality management’ has a veneer ofrespectability and ‘sexiness’ not enjoyed bymany of those labels it has supplanted. In anindustry that is globally notorious for variablypoor or mediocre management and employmentpractices, the term, whether intentionally ornot, performs a ‘disguising’ function. It shouldalso be added that in education, industry andelsewhere, the term ‘hospitality management’has something of the character of a wearilyadopted flag of convenience, a generic labelfor summarizing activities that are difficultto classify. This in part reflects long-standingdebate about what activities and enterprisesshould be included in industry classificationsof these types of services, and indeed, par-allels similar discussions about the nature oftourism (references). In a prescient observationpredating much of what has come to constitutedebates about the nature of hospitality, Brightand Johnson (1985: 27) commented:

However, despite the widespread adoption ofthis term [hospitality] and its use to describe theactivities of the industry, its meaning is still elusive.Academics have failed to clarify the concept andset it on a firm theoretical base. Meanwhile,industrialists, unconcerned with the finer points ofsemantics and definition, seek ways in which tooperationalize the concept to best advantage.

The intellectual problem attendant on defin-ing the term ‘hospitality management’ isno obscurantist preoccupation and can besummarized simply: for the most part ‘hos-pitality management’ functions without anyexplicit understanding of the nature of hos-pitality (Brotherton, 1999a; Brotherton and


38 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT

Wood, 2000). Within hospitality managementitself (that is, the academic infrastructure ofthe field) there have been occasional effortsat exploring these issues, represented mostobviously in collections of papers by Cummings,Kwansa and Sussman (1998) in the USA andLashley and Morrison (2000) in the UK, butthese efforts have not been sustained. The historyof ideas is, of course, littered with terms andconcepts that are widely used but not clearlydefined, and to nobody’s particular detriment.Yet in most academic disciplines one encountersat least some reflection on the nature of thosesubjects which if not consistent over time, oralways explicit in the nature of such reflection,mark some serious contribution to the etiologicalform of the discipline.

At the risk of caricature, it is possible todescribe the ‘state of the art’ in terms of currentunderstandings of hospitality by reference tothree, mutually inter-related preoccupations.The first of these is the preoccupation withsemantic definitions of hospitality, of seeking tosimply and unambiguously circumscribe whatis being studied (Brotherton and Wood, 2000).Semantic definitions include those favoredby various informed commentators, from dic-tionary compilers to hospitality academics.The second preoccupation is with semanticdefinitions of ‘hospitality management’, whichlargely emanates from within the communityof hospitality academics and practitioners.Whilst ostensibly a more rarefied concern,understanding the received wisdom here iscritical to forming more productive strategiesfor investigating and understanding hospitalityas a phenomenon more generally. The thirdpreoccupation focuses on evidential definitionsof hospitality which Brotherton and Wood(2000) contrast with the semantic approach.Evidential definitions are precisely those thatarise from efforts to understand, interpret andutilize existing diverse documentary sources onhospitality to inform definitional processes interms of theory building, or more preciselyin terms of providing theoretical context. Theevidential approach is thus rooted in academicliterature and seeks to locate and definehospitality within the ‘real world’ of evidence,although, as we have asserted, without thusfar much evidence of synergy. Nevertheless,attempts at the evidential definition of hospitalityprovide a bridgehead into consideration ofthe theoretical sources that have thus farcome to inform research in the field. Flowing

from these three preoccupations and, in themanner of a systems theoretical process model,feeding back into them, is a series of researchquestions or puzzles that constitute somethingapproaching a nascent research agenda. In whatfollows, the first section of this chapter willreview the definitional issues we have described,following the structure of these preoccupationsin order to chart the territory of the fieldas it currently stands. The discussion drawsextensively on the authors’ previous work inthis area (e.g. Brotherton, 1999a; Brothertonand Wood, 2000). This section concludes withsome attempt to circumscribe a rather simplisticsummary of the main themes thus emergingfrom the ‘study’ of hospitality. The secondpart of the chapter deals with the researchpuzzles and questions that appear to us to beindicated by a review of extant approachesto the understanding of hospitality and offersa commentary on how these may usefully beaddressed in the future.

SEMANTIC DEFINITIONSOF HOSPITALITY

As intimated earlier, the absence of definitions ofconcepts is not always inimical to discussion ofthe substance to which the concepts refer. In thestudy of hospitality in general, and hospitalitymanagement more specifically, definition isproblematic because of the lack of generalagreement as to what hospitality ‘is’. This issueis exacerbated by problems centering on thedegree of fluidity that should be tolerated indifferentiating and circumscribing the meaningsof hospitality in varying contexts, problems thattend to distil to concerns about the ‘authenticity’of hospitality in these contexts.

Semantic definitions include those in dic-tionaries, thus hospitality is the ‘friendly andgenerous reception and entertainment of guestsor strangers’ (Oxford Quick Reference Dictio-nary, 1996: 424) or ‘kindness in welcomingstrangers or guests’ (Collins Concise EnglishDictionary Plus, 1989: 604). Variant terms, suchas the word ‘hospitable’is defined by The OxfordEnglish Dictionary (1970: 405) in very similarterms to ‘hospitality’ as ‘offering or affordingwelcome and entertainment to strangers … ofpersons …of things, feelings, qualities etc….Disposed to receive or welcome kindly; openand generous in mind or disposition …Hence


THE NATURE AND MEANINGS OF ‘HOSPITALITY’ 39

hospitableness, a hospitable quality or charac-ter’.As with most dictionary definitions, these allshare a prescriptive quality in terms of behavior –they indicate to some degree what one shoulddo in order to extend hospitality or behavehospitably.

Amongst hospitality industry academics andpractitioners, similarly simple (and often sim-plistic) attempts at definition are to be found,frequently couched in terms of crude economicswith hospitality rendered in terms of theactivities of the hospitality industry. Sometimes,such definitions are so general as to be useless, asis the case with Tideman’s (1983: 1) observationthat hospitality is ‘the method of productionby which the needs of the proposed guestare satisfied to the utmost and that meansa supply of goods and services in a quantityand quality desired by the guest and at a pricethat is acceptable to him so that he feels theproduct is worth the price’ – a definition thatcould be a description of almost any economicactivity. Our earlier cited dictionary definitionstend to be simple, pragmatic and behaviorallyfocused, echoed in Tideman-like definitionswhere the focus, however, is on the nature ofthe hospitality (industry) product. Thus, Jones(1996: 1) argues that ‘hospitality is made up oftwo distinct services – the provision of overnightaccommodation for people staying away fromhome, and the provision of sustenance forpeople eating away from home’. The mainproblem with this view is that it conflates thedefinitions of ‘hospitality’ with the commercialhospitality industry. The hospitality industrymay well be an expression of some conceptsof hospitality but it is but one form ofhospitality – definitions like those of Jones andTideman tell us little about the generic qualitiesof hospitality. Other academic writers in thehospitality field have proffered more holisticdefinitions. For example, Cassee (1983: xiv) seeshospitality as: ‘a harmonious mixture of tangibleand intangible components – food, beverages,beds, ambience and environment, and behaviorof staff’, a definition modified by Cassee andReuland (1983: 144) to ‘a harmonious mixtureof food, beverage, and/or shelter, a physicalenvironment, and the behavior and attitude ofpeople’. These definitions avoid the problemof conflating definitions of hospitality withthe hospitality industry but continue to exhibitthe underlying assumption that hospitality issomething that is, principally, commercially‘created’ for consumption.

DEFINITIONS OF HOSPITALITYMANAGEMENT

Definitions of hospitality management parallelthe ‘conflation model’ outlined above, where‘hospitality’ is seen as coterminous with the hos-pitality industry. In the UK, a 1998 study, Reviewof Hospitality Management, commissioned bya key public body, the Higher Education FundingCouncil for England (HEFCE, 1998: 2), definedhospitality management as ‘having a core whichaddresses the management of food, beveragesand/or accommodation in a service context.Although, as King (1995: 220) points out,‘effective management of hospitality in anytype of organization must begin with a clearlyunderstood definition of what hospitality is’,‘hospitality management’ is a recent term usedonly to describe the management of industrialhospitality and the associated infrastructure ofeducation and research that supports it. It isperhaps surprising that, following King, it doesnot seem to have occurred that in seekingto understand what hospitality ‘is’, a widerinterpretation of the term ‘hospitality manage-ment’ could be rather useful in this regard.Freed from its industry context and interpretedmore broadly, hospitality management can beconstrued as the study of how hospitality ismanaged between individuals, between groupsand in the home, or in various commercial andnon-commercial public contexts.

Put another way, in terms of the scaleand complexity of the provision of hospitality,however defined, approaches to the studyof hospitality management that begin withindustry contexts are likely to be circular andunlikely to be either analytically profound orcomplete. As we noted in our Introduction tothis volume, there is a semantic circularity atwork here: hospitality is what the hospitalityindustry offers and hospitality management isthe management of what is offered, which ishospitality. With regards to the likely absenceof analytic depth and completeness in suchdefinitions there are two basic limitations. Thefirst relates to the necessary but reductionist(industry) imperative of defining hospitalityand hospitality management purely in termsof products and services and in studying(and delivering) these products and servicesmechanistically. The dominant model in theanalysis of product and service provision inhospitality is characterized by a crude systems



orientation reflected in the treatment of humanagency, and in particular, human interaction withhospitality products and services as a cipher:people are seen as acted upon by systemsbut not as contributing to the mutability oroperation of those systems (Wood, 2004).Secondly, applying ‘hospitality management’only in the hospitality industry context invitesapplication of an interpretive framework basedsolely on the repertoire of formal managementconcepts and techniques to the provision ofhospitality products and services. In the widercontext of the provision of hospitality sucha framework is a blunt instrument that effectivelyexcludes detailed consideration of the social,and indeed sociological/social psychologicalinfluences on motivations to provide and receivehospitality. More significantly, the application ofmanagement concepts and techniques is viewedas (relatively) intellectually unproblematic asis reflected in periodic attempts to constructtheories and ‘models’of hospitality managementwhich borrow concepts from ‘general’ manage-ment discourse and seek to adapt these to thehospitality sector (Nailon, 1982).

In summary, as is implied by King’s earlierquoted remark, an approach to the study ofhospitality management based solely on industryprovision and employing the language andconcepts of management provides us with anapproach that is in essence atheoretical, havingno theory of hospitality and, more importantly,offering little prospect of ever developing one.

EVIDENTIAL DEFINITIONSOF HOSPITALITY

Thus far we have considered semantic defini-tions of hospitality and hospitality management.Those definitions emanating from within thehospitality ‘community’ are usually narrow andlimiting (although there are honorable excep-tions, e.g. Burgess, 1982; Reuland, Choudreyand Fagel, 1985; Hepple, Kipps and Thomson,1990) and point to a need to consider the natureof hospitality more generically. Evidential defi-nitions of hospitality rooted in an (albeit) limitedand dispersed literature offer the potential to dothis, not least because the absence of extensiveconsideration of the phenomenon of hospitalitymeans that the intellectual terrain is relativelyeasy to map. At the same time however, itmust be recalled that the absence of extended

theorizing about, and empirical investigation of,hospitality means that there is little in the wayof a coherent theory or theories of hospitalityand therefore pronounced limits on potential forgeneralization.

Most ‘broader’ discussions of hospitalityare to be found in social scientific literature,generated in particular from within the dis-ciplines of philosophy, history, and sociologyand range from the highly theoretical andanalytic (Finkelstein, 1989; Heal, 1990; Murray,1990; Visser, 1992; Mennell, Murcott and vanOtterloo, 1992; Beardsworth and Keil, 1997;and Warde and Martens, 1998) to the largelydescriptive in nature, being primarily concernedwith tracing the evolution of the type andincidence of hospitality practices over time(Langley-Moore and Langley-Moore, 1936;Watts, 1963; White, 1968; Borer, 1972). Fromthe earliest days of academic considerationof the nature of hospitality, two themes haverun throughout this literature – hospitality asa means of social control, especially the controlof ‘strangers’, people who are essentially aliento a particular physical, economic and socialenvironment, and hospitality as a form of socialand economic exchange (including hospitalityas a ‘gift’) (Muhlmann, 1932). We shall considerthese themes in turn.

Hospitality and the stranger

The concept of the stranger has enjoyedconsiderable social scientific attention in thelast two decades largely because of interest inthe work of German sociologist Georg Simmel(1858–1918) (see for example Frisby, 2002).For Simmel, the stranger was a core figurein the newly, nineteenth century, industrializedand urbanized European landscape.As Pickering(2001: 205) puts it: ‘Simmel treated the strangeras a social form at the centre of structuresof interaction characterized, from a perspectiveof belonging, by both remote and close athand, mobile and yet somehow settled, fearedand yet desired’. For Pickering (2001: 204)strangers occupy an inherently ambivalentposition in society because they are ‘neithersocially peripheral nor symbolically central butsomewhere peculiarly in between’. They alsopossess power, a power which derives from theirvery quality of ambivalence, ‘of ‘being strange’but not starkly unfamiliar, of being close and yetdistant’ (Pickering, 2001: 206).



Pickering (2001) tends to focus on super-ordinate or ‘absolute’ categories of strangerin terms of ethnicity or those from othercountries. In this, he follows a trend establishedby Bauman (e.g. Bauman, 1990) perhaps themost pre-eminent contemporary sociologicalcommentator on the subject of the stranger.Bauman (1990: 54) asserts that a stranger isnot simply someone who is unfamiliar, someonenot known well, but, more remarkably, tendsto be to a large extent familiar or, put anotherway, in order to label someone as a stranger wemust, generally, know many things about them.What Bauman appears to be arguing is that inorder to label someone as a stranger we mustbe able to draw on contextual knowledge abouttheir differences from other, ‘non-strangers’,whether these are physical or social. Bauman(1990: 61) comments on the range of possibleresponses to the ambiguous position of thestranger in society. One such response is tosend them back ‘where they come from’ andBauman notes that if this is not successful,genocide may follow as an extreme form ofrestoring order to a social world fractured bythe presence of strangers. More often, separationoccurs between ‘strangers’and the rest of society(as, one presumes, in the creation of ghettoes forexample). This said, Bauman (1990: 62–63) thenasserts that this kind of separation rarely occurs,because, spatially, our society (by which hemeans, following Simmel, contemporary urbansociety) encourages high density living andpeople travel a lot. The consequence of this isthat for (Bauman, 1990: 63):

The world we live in seems to be populated mostlyby strangers; it looks like the world of universalstrangerhood. We live among strangers, amongwhom we are strangers ourselves. In such a world,strangers cannot be confined or kept at bay.Strangers must be lived with.

Even ignoring the seeming unevenness ofBauman’s comments (first strangers are dis-tinguishable from non-strangers, secondly theyare separated from society, then they are not)it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that heis arguing that ‘we are all strangers now’.The consequence of the ‘we are all strangersnow’ argument for Bauman is that – echoingFoucault (1979) – societies develop means ofcontrolling strangers – all of us – throughdiverse means of conducting surveillance andestablishing entitlements. Thus are concepts of‘admission’ established such that when moving

around strangers must identify themselvesin order to demonstrate their entitlement toenter a space (Bauman, 1990: 65). He citessecurity guards and receptionists as typicalexamples of the occupations that manage suchidentifications and entitlements. A satisfactoryoutcome to these processes is that some (butby no means all) of strangers’ ‘stranger-ness’is removed but we cannot remove of allthe unsettling aspects of living and dealingwith strangers who we constantly encounter ineveryday life. At the individual level, Bauman(1990: 66–67) argues, other methods of controlexhibit the characteristics of Erving Goffman’sconcept of ‘civil inattention’ (Goffman, 1963)whereby in a studied way we do not lookat, or listen to, the strangers around us,most commonly evidenced in the avoidance ofeye contact.

As might be expected, where the conceptof the stranger has been dealt with explicitlyin the context of tourism and hospitality, bothdifferences and points of contiguity with themore general social scientific themes caricaturedabove readily emerge. The most significantconceptual distinction in this literature is thatbetween private and public hospitality and therole of the stranger in each. Authors like Visser(1992: 93) writing from the perspective of thehistory and sociology of food tend to focus ondomestic hospitality:

The laws of hospitality deal firstly with strangers –how to manage their entry into our inner sanctum,how to protect them from our own automaticreaction, which is to fear and exclude the unknown,how to prevent them from attacking and desecrat-ing what we hold dear, or from otherwise behavingin a strange and unpredictably dangerous manner.We remember that we too might one day needa stranger’s help. So we behave in the prescribedcivilized manner…

Zeldin (1994: 437), from the perspective ofcultural history, elaborates the domestic/publicaxis of hospitality:

Do people find it more or less easy to speak tostrangers than they did in the past? The answercan be found in the history of hospitality. Todayin the rich countries, hospitality means, aboveall entertaining friends or acquaintances in one’shome; but once upon a time it meant openingone’s house to total strangers, giving a meal toanyone who chose to come, allowing them tostay the night, indeed imploring them to stay,although one knew nothing about them. This kindof open hospitality has been admired and practiced



in virtually every civilization that has existed, asthough it fulfils a basic human need.

Mary Douglas’ work on the social structureof the meal arguably undermines Zeldin’ssuggestion that above all, hospitality meansentertaining acquaintances since acquaintancespossess many of the characteristics of thestranger, and in terms of domestic hospitality areentitled only to lesser forms of hospitality (seefor example Douglas, 1975). This aside, in thequotation above and elsewhere, Zeldin (1994:438) undoubtedly captures a further dimensionto discussions of the private/public divide inhospitality when he talks of the decline of theformer which he traces to sixteenth centuryEngland:

As soon as the rich appointed almoners to do theircharitable work for them, they lost direct touchwith their visitors; as soon as distress was dealt withimpersonally by officials, hospitality was never thesame again [.] Free hospitality was superseded bythe hospitality industry.

Zeldin’s remarks reflect assumptions aboutthe decline in hospitality not principally in termsof a diminution in the quantity of domestichospitality, but in the wider cheapening of thenature of hospitality as it becomes increasingly,and nastily, commercialized. Such assumptionsin the literature are therefore reinforced bya tendency to imbue moral virtues to hospitality –the hospitality of archaic and pre-industrialsocieties (or traditional ‘domestic-based’ hospi-tality) is ‘good’and industrial and post-industrialhospitality (‘commercial’ hospitality) is ‘bad’(Wood, 1994b). This vulgar Orwellianism wasforeshadowed by Mauss (2002) and Muhlmann(1932: 464), the latter writing:

The germ of the decay of hospitality is inherent inthe institution itself, in that it inevitably extendsfrontiers and the domain of peace and promotestrade; as a result there arise public legal principles,which go beyond the personal and the familiar andtake the place of hospitality … Primitive hospitalitywas addressed to the public enemy; in the modernworld the distinction between friend and enemy inthe political sense is irrelevant. The old hospitalitywas a social or religious obligation; that of moderntimes rests with the discretion of the individual.

Muhlmann’s complaint is, that in essence, thespiritual qualities of ‘traditional’domestic-basedhospitality have disappeared to be replaced inthe public sphere by a formally rational systemof impersonal hospitality based on monetary

exchange. More importantly perhaps, under-pinning most of the commentaries mentionedso far is a somewhat romantic view of whatmight be termed the ‘nobility’ of pre-industrialhospitality. This is most emphatically seen inthe emphasis placed on notions concerning theprotection of strangers through hospitality inpre-industrial societies. For Muhlmann (1932:463) hospitality ‘represents a kind of guaranteeof reciprocity – one protects the stranger inorder to be protected from him’. Visser (1992:93) points out that in the control of strangersin our ‘inner sanctum’ abusing a defenselessstranger in unacceptable. Zeldin offers anentertaining historical insight when he informsus of the Albanian host’s obligation to entertainstrangers and revenge himself upon anyonewho harmed them before they reached theirnext destination (Zeldin, 1994: 437). Heal(1990) in her seminal study of hospitality inearly modern England (c. 1400–1700) locateshospitality as a phenomenon emanating fromthe home, and contemporary hospitality assomething comparatively free of overtones ofsocial duty inherent to hospitality in fifteenth toeighteenth century England.

Although, historically, the protection ofstrangers may have had a self-serving function,a clear theme in the literature is that thiswas subordinate to a system of social valuesthat emphasized the proffering of hospitalityas a duty and virtue, vestigial elements ofwhich remain in the modern domestic spherebut have been largely expunged from modernforms of public provision of hospitality. Indeed,Heal (1990: 1) begins from this position notingthat: ‘For modern Western man hospitality ispreponderantly a private form of behavior, exer-cised as a matter of personal preference withina limited circle of friendship and connection’.As we have seen, this is a view subsequentlyechoed by Zeldin (1994) and others. What, inessence, we are offered here is a two dimen-sional model of hospitality which proposesa distinction between ‘historical’ hospitality,rooted in domesticity and premised on dutyand virtue and highly personal in conceptionand delivery, and ‘modern’ hospitality whichis publicly organized and premised on formsof ‘rational’ – usually monetary – exchange(i.e. is predominantly commercial) and is highlyimpersonal in conception and delivery. It is nota very persuasive or plausible model. Manyof the writers cited mistake the importance ofimpersonality represented by public hospitality.



If Bauman (1990) is correct (and interpretedcorrectly) that in modern society ‘we are allstrangers now’, then impersonality constitutesa normative feature of nearly all contemporarypublic social behavior. If impersonality isa social norm then it makes little sense toanalyze contemporary hospitality wholly byreference to a putative (and evidentially unsafe)historical benchmark as to what hospitality‘was’, especially when that benchmark containsmore than an element of apparently romanticizednostalgia.

To summarize thus far, most treatmentsof the role of the stranger in the provisionof hospitality are rooted in (a) assumptionsabout the distinctions that exist between theprovision of hospitality in domestic and non-domestic, usually public commercial, contexts;and (b) fairly simplistic assertions (economic,historical) about how these forms of provisionhave changed, by implication, mainly for theworse, over time.Although the stranger is placedat the heart of ‘historical domestic hospitality’,as the person to whom such hospitality wasdirected, very little is said in the literatureabout the role of the stranger in modern publichospitality, an asymmetry which taken withthe tendency to moralize and romanticize thequalities of pre-industrial hospitality forces usto turn to outwards to the work of those,largely influenced by Simmel, who offer moregeneralized perspectives on the societal role ofthe stranger. Even here, clarity is not assuredbut at least there is a positioning of the strangerin a wider social web, a positioning which,if Bauman (1990) and Pickering (2001), asrepresentatives of this broader approach, arecorrect, suggest that contemporary social inter-action fundamentally comprises the personaland inter-personal management and controlof encounters between strangers, albeit thereare varying degrees of ‘strange-ness’ in theseencounters.

Such an attitude finds resonance, albeitlargely unintentional, in the academic fieldof tourism and hospitality studies. Althoughlargely in ignorance of these issues, a strandof thinking in tourism and hospitality studieshas developed the idea of the impersonalityof the tourism and hospitality ‘experience’.As Ryan (1991) notes, tourists are strangersand bring with them the threat of social,cultural and environmental damage. The touristis not, however ‘simply a stranger, buta temporary stranger … they are a guest, but

an impersonal guest’ (Ryan, 1991: 42). Theconsequences of this impersonality for hotelhospitality have been characterized by Wood(1994c) in terms of the mechanisms that hotelsuse to control their stranger-guests. For publichospitality more widely however, the problemof the stranger is compounded by the factthat the majority of persons who participate inpublic hospitality are not tourists but permanentmembers of their communities who use thepublic hospitality facilities rooted in thosecommunities. To what extent are regular users ofthese facilities justifiably classified as strangers?In our own country, the UK, the culture ofthe public house is instructive in this regard.We refer to the hostelry we most frequentlyvisit as our ‘local’ and frequent visitors toa particular hostelry are known as ‘regulars’.Areregulars strangers? Following Bauman (1990)we can perhaps suggest that by establishingclear traditions of access and entitlements, somestrangers are less strange than others, evenin a world comprised entirely of strangers.Indeed, if the desire existed to be mischievousone might argue that Bauman’s ‘we are allstrangers now’ is a deliberately self-negatingargument – if we are all strangers now then canwe speak any longer of ‘strangers’ as a genericcategory? The point is not wholly trivial, foras we have seen, in many of the accountsof the provision of hospitality consideredin this discussion, the ‘stranger’ effectivelydisappears at that supposed point in historywhere morally virtuous private domestic-basedhospitality gave way to amoral commercial,publicly provided ‘institutional’hospitality. Thisis a point to which we shall return subsequent toexamination of our second major theme here,hospitality as a form of social and economicexchange.

Hospitality as social exchange

It is important to begin this discussion bynoting that any attempt to link extant com-mentaries on the role of social exchange inhospitality to broader sociological debates onexchange theory are bound to be limited becausewriters on hospitality and social exchangehave made few connections to wider debatesabout ‘general’ exchange and rational choicetheory, the intellectual spadework does notexist. The principle reason for this lies in theindebtedness of such writers to concepts of



exchange developed by Marcel Mauss (2002)which emphasizes the role of reciprocity withina system of gift exchange. In contrast, rationalexchange theory in its diverse forms emphasizesthe workings of the market and, as Shilling andMellor (2001: 167) observe:

Utility-maximizing exchanges are guided by ratio-nality, rather than normative factors, and producesocial relationships rather than being shaped bythem. Patterns of exchange do not derive fromthe pre-contractual foundations of solidarity, butemerge as individuals seek to maximize theirinterests. Sociality and solidarity … are secondaryphenomena arising from rationally interactingindividuals.

Shilling and Mellor (2001: 167) contrastrational exchange theory quite explicitly tothe work of Mauss who, they claim, refutesa view of exchange as rationally informed utilitymaximization. At the heart of Mauss’s argumentis the notion that the apparently voluntarynature of gift exchange ‘disguises how it derivesfrom the creation and sustenance of allegiancesbetween families, clans and tribes’ and is in factpredicated on complex rules and obligations.Even in modern society, Shilling and Mellorwrite, Mauss ‘emphasized that the emotionalvalues arising from gift exchange can representthe consolidation and creation of bonds betweenpeople’. Shilling and Mellor’s point is thatMauss’ view of exchange has been effectivelyexcluded from consideration in ‘mainstream’rational exchange theory. In an earlier reviewof the field, Scott (1995: 75) goes a little further,noting:

The exchange model of interaction has some-times been compared with an earlier analysis ofexchange … developed by Marcel Mauss …[.]Mauss presented an account of the exchange ofgifts in tribal societies, but he showed that theseexchanges involved a norm of ‘reciprocity’ thatwas quite distinct from the economic logic ofthe market. Although many exchange theoristshave attempted to build norms of obligationand reciprocity into their work, this has alwaysbeen a problematic exercise. Economic theorists,the mainstream of exchange theory, and recent‘rational choice’ theories have all been more athome with those forms of action that can beassumed to follow a purely rational ‘economic’ or‘market’ orientation.

Both Scott (1995) and Shilling and Mellor(2001) regard such distinctions as sufficientbasis for effectively sidelining accounts of

exchange in the tradition of Mauss (althoughwriters like Davis, 1992 take a less dismissiveview). This is perhaps, understandable. Debatesrevolving around the varieties of rationalexchange theory on offer reveal themselves tobe highly disputatious even by the standards ofmodern sociology (Ritzer, 2003) largely becausethey strike at the heart of the sociologist’strade in seeking, crudely put, to explain socialstructure and behavior in terms of economicimperatives. It is, however, worth noting, that thedistinction in the ‘stranger literature’ betweenpre-industrial, domestic hospitality and indus-trial and post-industrial hospitality characterizedby commercial imperatives mooted earlier inthis discussion finds a peculiar, even bizarre,reflection in this rather dismissive approach.The preferred and somewhat sentimentalizedview of the former in that literature effectivelydemonizes ‘commercial’hospitality as a form ofexchange and has very little to say on the subject.The position of writers on exchange theorydescribed above, none of them with an interestin ‘hospitality’, whether commercial or of anyother kind, effectively writes out of intellectualhistory views of exchange represented by writerssuch as Mauss (2002) because incorporat-ing such views, in Scott’s (1995) words, isa ‘problematic exercise’. Descriptively this maybe accurate, but as a justification for excludinga particular intellectual tradition from consid-eration it seems somewhat cavalier. Just as inthe ‘stranger literature’ there is a privileging of‘historical’ domestic hospitality and an ignoringdismissiveness about the forms and meaning ofcommercial hospitality, exchange theorists seemcontent to privilege those forms of exchangethat valorize modern industrial societies whilemarginalizing those that might be supposed tounderpin historical and less complex societies,a point effectively demonstrated by Davis (2000)in her essays on the gift in sixteenth-centuryFrance, who shows that the Maussian and othersocial anthropological approaches to exchangewill not simply go away.

Such are the lacunae with which com-mentaries like this must deal in seeking toelucidate the nature of hospitality. In consideringhospitality as social exchange, we do not havethe luxury of ignoring the Maussian tradition,but nor do we possess the means to assess therole of hospitality in the context of rationalexchange theories. The key work of Mauss inquestion is The Gift, first published accordingto Lechte (1994) as Essai sur le donne in



1923–24. Contra rational exchange theory (orat least some varieties of it), Mauss does notview social relationships as being determinedby processes of economic exchange but ratherthere is a complex interaction between economicand social factors in such relationships. Put thisway it is hard for a lay reader to credit someof the intent of rational exchange theory sincesuch a statement, experientially, seems obvious.In the Maussian tradition, the inter-relationshipbetween economic and social exchange is takento involve shared values and trust, not simpleeconomic rationality on the part of socialactors alone. In the field of hospitality thisview has been most obviously developed inan inexplicably neglected paper by Burgess(1982). Burgess (1982) takes the view that theconcept of the gift is best used as a metaphorfor studying hospitality and hospitable behavior.Five important dimensions of this ‘hospitality asgift metaphor’ are important.

First, though any gift may have symbolicqualities, those who give seek to enhance thevalue of their gift by transferring some part ofthe self to the recipient in order to establishbonds which communicate, variously, degreesof formality in relationships, personal warmthand sincerity. Burgess argues that this evidencedin the ‘mein host’ role adopted by manyhospitality practitioners (whether proprietors ormanagers) in an effort to convey something ofthe ‘self’ and imprint their own personality onthe operation (in the context of small hospitalitybusinesses this has almost become a sine quanon for understanding the nature and forms ofrelationships in these establishments, see, forexample, Stringer, 1981, on bed and breakfastproviders and, more recently, Lynch, 2000, onthe homestay sector).

Secondly, gifts convey information aboutand confer identity on those who give,just as the nature of hospitality offered ina particular context establishes the commitmentand involvement of the host in hospitalityprovision. Here, Burgess reflects early (andanticipates subsequent) work in the sociology offood and eating and in particular that part of thefield which focuses on domestic dining, which,using Bauman’s terms, explores rights andentitlements of ‘admission’ to particular formsof hospitality within the home (see for exampleDouglas, 1975). Additionally, the degree ofhospitality perceived by guests to be on offer hasbeen the subject of some debate. Stringer (1981)notes that in bed and breakfast establishments

the ambivalence of the ‘host’ over the degreeof access to certain parts of the building, orthe availability of certain facilities, can createdoubts about the extent to which guests arewelcome (see also Wood, 1994c).

Thirdly, Burgess argues that gift exchangeand hospitality share a preoccupation withassessing the needs and desires of recipients bygivers/providers which tends to be focused onoptimization of bonds of trust in the exchangerelationship. Perhaps one of the limitationsof Burgess’s ‘metaphor’ approach is that in‘industrial hospitality’ there is a constant tensionbetween formal corporate proclamations ofcommitment to customer service (themselvesoften highly metaphorical in content) and theresources available to realize such commitmentand service. Put more obviously, large hotelorganizations and corporations must treat cus-tomers as an agglomeration whereas customersthemselves buy in to the metaphor that they areindividuals with individual needs, desires andproblems that should be addressed individually(Wood, 1994c). It is when metaphor meetsreality that the binds of hospitality are trulytested as is witnessed by the whole actualand parallel academic industry centering onimproving customer satisfaction and service.

Fourth, Burgess (1982) suggests that giftexchange and hospitality are both orientedtowards establishing an ‘interaction order’whereby the character of exchanges is developedaccording to implicit rules negotiated by partiesto the exchange. These rules include, interalia, those concerning mutual respect of publicand private areas of hotels (Goffman, 1959),participation in the rituals of the hotel organiza-tion (Hayner, 1969 (1936)) and maintenance ofprevailing standards of decorum (Wood, 1994c).

Finally, the reciprocity involved in socialexchanges, together with the rules that areapplied in practicing exchanges, assume a sharedresponsibility for the outcome of the exchangeon the part of givers and providers.

The greatest significance of the generalMaussian view of exchange and the roleof reciprocity, as well as its more specificapplications in Burgess’s (1982) essay lies inthe fact that, notwithstanding the peculiaritiesof rational exchange theories alluded to earlier,it raises a so far unanswered case for the roleof social exchange and reciprocity in (at leasthistorical) analyses of hospitality that cannot,as it were, be brushed under the intellectualcarpet. More importantly, concepts of exchange



and reciprocity in the sense outlined herepermit us the beginnings of a more even andless romanticized view of the development ofhospitality. This is because they clearly suggestthat the giving of hospitality, domestically,historically or in pre-modern societies, wasnever a neutral act, a point somewhat ironicallyacknowledged by Heal (1990) who otherwise,as we have seen, tends to the rose tinted viewof such hospitality. Christian (1979), in possiblythe earliest contribution from the perspective ofhospitality management to the debates outlinedin this essay, additionally notes that, historically,private domestic hospitality might have beenoffered without charge or monetary expectationsbut some form of reciprocity was expected.One motivation to protect strangers is thedesire to control them and in so doing protectone’s property, effects and immediate socialcircle. Another motivation is the possibilityof reciprocal benefits that might accrue asa result of such protection, in other words theprospect of some form of exchange benefitinherent to the act of ‘giving’ hospitality. Ifthis view is accepted then there are furtherreasons for rejecting the ‘nostalgic’ view ofhospitality, not simply from the viewpoint ofthe expectation of reciprocal benefits from theproffering of hospitality but also in terms ofthe seemingly intrinsic ‘falseness’that motivatesthe protection of strangers. Put another way,not only is the integrity of pre-commercial hos-pitality undermined by the exchange principlebut so is the very concept of pre-commercialhospitality promulgated by some writers. Thisis because the idea of ‘protecting the stranger’is, in motivational terms, indivisible from theexpectation of some ‘return’. This point isreinforced by the philosopher Elizabeth Telfer(1996: 82–87) who in discussing the differentmeanings of the terms ‘hospitableness’ and‘hospitality’ argues that the former can bemotivated by diverse forces including desiresfor company, the pleasures of entertaining, thedesire to please others, and to meet others’needs. Other motives might include a person’sallegiance to their perceived duties in mattersof hospitality, and even ulterior motives whichhave nothing to do with a guest’s pleasure orwelfare. Indeed, Telfer (1996: 82) goes as far asto suggest that ‘Being a good host is not evena necessary condition of being hospitable’ or, inother words, it is entirely possible to ‘achieve’hospitality and hospitableness without beingintrinsically motivated by reasons of altruism

or duty, a fact to which the modern hospitalityindustry more than adequately testifies.

TOWARDS A WORKABLE SYNTHESIS

So far in this chapter, we have sought to bringtogether some of the main themes in the (sofar limited) study of the concept of hospitality.Meaningful synthesis is difficult to achievebecause of the diversity of perspectives involvedand, in the case of the sociological literature atleast, because some of the themes and issuesare, to put it diplomatically, expressed at a highlevel of abstraction. Nevertheless, it is possibleto create some semblance of coherence fromthe foregoing discussions. Rather than rehearsethe arguments reviewed so far, a numberof propositions will instead be advanced asrepresenting a consensus on ‘the state of theart’. From here, we will identify and elaborateand comment on related research puzzles andquestions that may plausibly form the basis ofa future research agenda.

The first of these propositions is the sim-plest: it is that hospitality is an evolvingphenomenon that exhibits multiple qualities andcharacteristics at all and different points intime. To propose that there is some dividingpoint in history where the qualities and char-acteristics of hospitality fundamentally changeis a proposition requiring investigation, not animmutable fact. This is not to say that the natureof hospitality has not varied over time, it has,and continues to do so in different contemporaryenvironments, cultures and countries. Thisdiversity is precisely what requires further studyrather than some artificially imposed attempt atclosure.

Secondly, hospitality as a phenomenon ispresent in multiple social contexts, there is nosimple dichotomy between ‘domestic’and ‘non-domestic’ hospitality. Indeed, the very concepts‘domestic’ and non-domestic’ are problematic,especially when directly linked to notions of fun-damental historical change in terms of a movefrom a form of hospitality based on personalduty centered on or around private residencesto a form of hospitality based on commercialprovision in public places. This is because thelatter represents a too delimited concept ofthe non-domestic, ignoring for example non-commercial provision of hospitality in publicplaces.



Thirdly, hospitality is provided for diversemotives but always embraces the expectationof reciprocity. This is not the same as sayingthat all forms of the provision of hospitalityactually involve reciprocity although many, andprobably almost all do. What it does mean isthat the existence of such expectations createsa particular and common form of social relationsthat are subsequently negotiated according to thecontext of provision.

Fourthly, insofar as hospitality is about thecontrol of strangers, then following Bauman(1990) and Ryan (1991) ‘we are all strangersnow’ and tourists are temporary strangers, butthe particular forms that tourism and hospitalityencounters assume means that ‘strangerness’canhardly be treated as an absolute category orindeed one that is especially exceptional. Indeed,both our major literary themes, ‘strangerness’and ‘reciprocity’ seem, in the light of what hasgone before strangely inadequate as a basis fora full investigation of the nature of hospitalityalthough their value as an intellectual orientationcannot be gainsaid.

Fifthly here, and following Telfer (1996)hospitality can be provided and experiencedwithout the provision or experience of hospit-able behavior. This is a more important pointthan at first appears, if only because it movesus away from the idea that the concept ofhospitality is in some way inseparable fromits practice, the assumption that bedevils muchof the ‘stranger’ approach to the topic as wehave seen. Further, in pointing to the diversemotivational reasons for providing hospitality,Telfer’s view also liberates us from the determin-istic ramifications of rational exchange theorywhereby social relationships are produced byrational economic actions.

These five propositions are probably all thatcan be confidently asserted about what weknow of the nature of hospitality, anythingelse is speculation, albeit informed speculation.We could add that all hospitality situations,whether public or private, are imbued withsymbolic associations and significance but todo so would be to articulate a commonplace.There can be few social situations that are notcharacterized by symbolic associations. Whatremains to be identified and debated are thoseparticular to hospitality. We could also add thathospitality also involves the provision (or at leastavailability) of physical artifacts in the form ofaccommodation, food and/or drink. This seemsto be a fair operating assumption although it

is theoretically conceivable that hospitality canbe experienced as a result of the provision ofother kinds of artifacts. What is certain is thatthese propositions generate a list of questionsand puzzles for future research without whichthere is likely to be little further advance oncurrent forms of discussion. It is to these we turnin the final part of this chapter.

RESEARCH PUZZLES AND QUESTIONS

For convenience, we have consolidated thesepuzzles and questions into five categoriesmirroring our five propositions. They are asfollows.

First, what can we say about the differentforms that hospitality takes through time andin different places and cultures? What are thedrivers of these forms and the changes thatare wrought by time and culture? Second, inaddition to time and culture, what variations inhospitality occur according to place/location?Third, how are different motives to providehospitality mediated by time, place and location(including social structure and agency) and howare they molded by, or themselves mold, systemsof economic, social and power relations? Fourth,how might the behavioral aspects of hospital-ity be understood in terms of the treatmentof would-be recipients of hospitality? Howvoluntaristic is the ‘hospitality relationship’between two or more parties, what are thebenefits that accrue to the parties who engagein it in terms of commensality and the mutualenhancement, if any, of these relationships?Finally, what concepts and frameworks beyondthose already considered are most useful forunderstanding the nature of hospitality and itsforms?

These five areas are distinct yet inter-related. They are all concerned with either thedichotomous question of whether hospitalityis spatially and temporally universal or con-tingent and/or the challenging of commonlyheld assumptions regarding the nature of theexchange relationship between providers andreceivers of hospitality (Brotherton and Wood,2000). They also imply a need, as has beenpreviously argued (Brotherton, 1999b; 1999c)for more conceptual and empirical research atmacro and meso comparative, and micro, case-specific levels. Furthermore, these puzzles andquestions can only be addressed and answered



by research effort characterized by much greaterconceptual depth and empirical detail.

To illustrate this consider the followingobservation. The question of whether hospitalityremains constant over time or between differingspatial entities has often been considered ata rather superficial level. At this level it ispossible to make self-evident statements todemonstrate that specific ‘forms’ of hospitality,in terms of type of location and format, do evolveand change over time. In short, that the placeshospitality was predominantly offered at in thepast are no longer the primary locations for thisactivity today. Similarly, the particular form/smost commonly accepted as ‘the way to providehospitality’ in the past are not those necessarilyviewed as the ‘norm’ today, the conclusion thenbeing that hospitality today is different fromhospitality provided in the past.

The same argument applies to spatial andcultural variation. Because the United Kingdomis spatially and culturally different from sayChina or Japan, or even France or Turkey, itwould be tempting to conclude that the differentspatial (i.e. resource, and cultural characteris-tics) of these countries would evolve different,perhaps unique, views of what hospitality is andthe practices it should embody. However, onceagain, this may be a superficial and misleadingconclusion. Although it is axiomatic that dif-ferent economic and socio-cultural antecedentshave influenced the present forms of hospitalityin different societies and cultures, and that thesedo embody visible differences, the question iswhether these differences are as fundamental asthey may appear to be.

In both the temporal and spatial, generic-specific, dichotomies it is, and clearly has been,according to much of the extant literature, easy tofall into the trap of arriving at conclusions basedon ‘self-evident’ evidence that, because certainobvious differences exist then these differencesmust indicate the presence of significant, if notfundamental, differences in the motives for theprovision, the forms of, behaviors embodiedwithin and the predominant locations wherehospitality is provided. The problem with thisinterpretation is that it fails to distinguishbetween what has been referred to as the genericcore, or essence, of hospitality and the morevisible, malleable and contingent periphery(Brotherton, 2002; 2004; 2005; 2006).

Brotherton and Wood (2000) and Brotherton(2002; 2004; 2005; 2006) have producedwork designed to address this core/periphery

issue and develop possible approaches forcomparative analysis. One analogy used inthis work that may have some further valuein relation to the issues discussed above isthe distinction between species and varieties,or more specifically between genotypes andphenotypes. Even though a particular speciesmay have a large number of varieties the criticalissue is not the extent of the variation butthe commonality existing across the varietiesbelonging to a particular species. This is notto say that the nature of the variations arenot important in terms of influencing specificbehaviors and manifestations – they clearlyare – or that these differences do not have anysignificance or meaning – they clearly do – butthe corollary of this line of thinking would bethat there are no universals, or at the very least,that if these did exist they would be subservientto the contingent variations. This would denythe primacy, if not the existence, of generalprinciples and universal laws.

In an attempt to avoid this problem Brotherton(2002; 2006) proposes a more systematicapproach to developing a ‘general theory ofhospitality’. This work presents a concep-tual model identifying the parameters (naturaland human resources), independent (eco-nomic, socio-cultural, politico-legal, technolog-ical), intervening (domestic and commercialhospitality behavior) and moderating (futureexpectations) variables influencing the depen-dent variable of the nature, incidence and formsof hospitality in any given time period and spatiallocation. Thus, this model explicitly recognizesand incorporates the variables influencing, ordetermining, the specific form and volumehospitality takes within any temporal – spatialnexus. By postulating the nature and directionof the relationships between these variables themodel moves the debate forward by addressingthe generic-specific issue through the applica-tion of a consistent theoretical framework. Thechallenge this presents to other researchers is theempirical testing and refinement of this modeland its components to verify, or otherwise, itsability to explain, and possibly predict, thecommon and different aspects of hospitality.

That said, this model really only deals withthe macro and meso levels. Though it may beapplied to the manifestation of hospitality ina given time period or country, or perhaps toan inter-sectoral or industry analysis, in thisform it lacks a suitable operational definitionnecessary to explore the detail embodied in



apparently different forms of hospitality. Ifany given manifestation of hospitality is to becompared with another, or others, to discernwhether they can be categorized as the same(generic) or different (contingent) then anappropriate basis, or framework, for comparisonhas to be developed. Without such a commondenominator comparison is difficult, if notmeaningless.

To address this Brotherton (2002; 2003a;2006) proposes that hospitality may be con-ceptualized as comprising four dimensions(spatial, behavioral, temporal, physical) relatingto where, why and when hospitality occurs andwhat is included in it. The spatial dimension isconcerned with the where aspect, and thereforefacilitates a consideration of the locationsand places hospitality occurs. The behavioraldimension focuses on the motives underlying theprovision of hospitality and the human processesinvolved in its delivery. The temporal dimensionis concerned with the incidence of hospitality,i.e. hospitality occasions, and finally the physicaldimension identifies the physical features andproducts associated with any given type ofhospitality.

In a dual attempt to empirically explore theefficacy of this operational definition and simul-taneously address the issue of what hospitalitymeans, or how it is conceived by its commercialrecipients (guests and customers), Brotherton’s(2003a; 2005) exploratory study produced someinteresting findings. This was a multiple casestudy with two hotels comprising the cases.As hospitality is a multi-dimensional conceptand its manifestations, in peoples’ experience,are varied the use of a context, i.e. the hotel,as a reference point, or cognitive anchor, forrespondents to relate their responses to wasan important consideration. By contrast thedata collection instrument and process wassomewhat less structured, using metaphors asstimuli to elicit responses through face-to-face interviewing of the hotel guests. Althoughthis is a common approach in new productdevelopment and market research in general,it has rarely, if ever, been used within thiscontext to ascertain, in a quite unrestrainedmanner, the guest or consumer view of what theyassociate with the concept of hospitality. Fromthe results of 89 interviews conducted in the twohotels cross-tabulation and chi square analysisof the data indicated there were no statisticallysignificant relationships between the categoricalvariables of age, occupation, ethnicity, repeat

visitation, gender, and reason for stay and theresponses recorded to the substantive questionsasked.

The words the respondents associated with‘hospitality’were overwhelmingly behavioral innature with only a minority relating to the phys-ical or temporal dimensions referred to above.The words they associated with the physicaland service aspects of hospitality in the hotelswere identified as being either impressionistic,in terms of the physical and service deliverercharacteristics, or judgments made in relation tothe performance of the physical or service part ofthe hospitality experience they were receiving.When the respondents were asked to considerthese physical and service aspects as a color, ananimal and a season of the year again it wasclear that they used these metaphors as vehiclesto express their impressions and judgments ina similar manner. Certain colors, animals andseasons were used consistently to record poorimpressions and/or performance, and vice-versa.

In a follow-up, as yet unpublished, study tothis conducted by the same author and using thesame methodology within fast food restaurantsvery similar findings were obtained. In this study200 customers were interviewed in two fast foodrestaurants, a McDonalds and a Burger King, inthe UK. The chi square statistics for this dataagain were not statistically significant indicatingonce again that the instrument was robust inrelation to respondent characteristics variationor, in short, that age, gender, occupation,ethnicity etc do not significantly influence thenature of the words associated with hospitalityor the nature of the metaphor chosen to representtheir impressionistic or judgmental views of thehospitality being received.

There was also quite a remarkable degree ofsimilarity and consistency in this study’s resultscompared to those in the earlier Brotherton(2003a; 2005) study. In the case of the wordsassociated with ‘hospitality’ again the majoritywere behavioral in nature, some were physicalor temporal and others were spatial, referring toother types of location or place where hospitalitycould be expected (see Table 1.1). In this sensethe findings not only confirmed the behavioraldimension to be the dominant one in the mind ofthe guest or customer but also that all four of thedimensions posited by Brotherton (2002) wererecognized in these responses.

Again, in common with the earlier study, thewords the respondents associated with the phys-ical and service aspects of hospitality in the two



Table 1.1 Words associated with hospitality

Behavioral Physical Temporal Spatial

Pleasantness/politeness/manners/courtesy/helpfulness (82) Comfort (14) Travel, Tourism Hotels (8)Service – great/good, customer, quality (71) Cleanliness (12) and Holidays (3) Restaurants (3)Friendliness/Warmth (66) Home (2)Welcoming (46) Hospital (2)Care/attention/being looked after (33) Bars (2)Kindness/hospitableness/generosity (23)

Table 1.2 Words used to describe thephysical aspects of Hospitality in therestaurants

Impression Performance

McDonalds McDonaldsModern/bright/colorful (16)Basic/ functional (12)Shabby/tacky/plastic/

unwelcoming/cheap/

Very Nice/good/excellent (3)

Adequate/satisfactory/average/acceptable (6)

Boring (14)Clean/tidy (51)Pleasant/comfortable/

welcoming (9)

Burger King Burger KingModern/bright/colorful (16) Very Nice/GoodBasic/functional (8) Excellent/appealing (6)Shabby/tacky/plastic/

unwelcoming/cheap/OKay/satisfactory/

adequate/Boring (9) Average (7)American (13)Clean (33)Pleasant/comfortable/

welcoming (16)

restaurants were clearly of an impressionisticor judgmental nature and were also almostidentical to those used in the hotels context(see Tables 1.2 and 1.3). The only differencesbetween the two sets of results in these respectswere that there were fewer impressionistic wordsoffered by the fast food respondents to thephysical aspects question and more referenceto speed, efficiency and regimentation by theserespondents in the service aspects responses.However, such variations in the relative volumeor specificity of words used may be expectedwhere the physical and service aspects clearlydiffer. In a hotel the physical environment ismore heterogeneous and richer than that evidentin a fast food restaurant and, similarly, it isnot surprisingly to find much greater referenceto speed etc in an environment where this is

Table 1.3 Words used to describe theservice aspects of hospitality in therestaurantsService delivererbehavior/characteristics

Service delivererperformance

McDonalds McDonaldsFriendly/cheerful/welcoming/

polite/pleasant/helpful (52)

Quick/fast/efficient (17)Slow (3)Bored/uninterested/unfriendly/

unwelcoming/unenthusiastic/slow/careless/robotic/regimented (25)

Very good/excellentGood (4)Average/reasonable/

satisfactory (4)Poor/awful (2)

Burger King Burger KingFriendly/cheerful/

welcoming/polite/pleasant/helpful (32)

Quick/fast/efficient (21)Slow (7)Bored/Uninterested/unfriendly/

unwelcoming/

Good (7)Acceptable/okay/average/Adequate (8)Poor/disappointing/not

good (7)

unenthusiastic/slow/careless/rbotic/regimented (24)

expected and known to be one of the operation’skeys to success.

The predominant colors, or groups of relatedcolors, chosen by the fast food respondents inrelation to the physical aspects of hospitality (seeTable 1.4) were virtually identical to those of thehotel guest in the previous study, as were thereasons given for the choices, suggesting that itmay be possible in the future to develop a morestandardized and parsimonious instrument toelicit, record and analyze this type of data.It would appear that the nature of the colorassociation or connotation for the guest orcustomer is consistent regardless of the natureof the physical environment. This postulate also



Table 1.4 Words used to describe the physical aspects of hospitality in the restaurantsas a color

Color group n % Reasons why

McDonalds McDonaldsBrown 3 3.2 Basic, no frills, indistinct, poor hygiene.Orange 6 6.4 Bright, cheerful, energizing, fast, pleasant, warm.

Burger King Burger KingBrown/Amber 2 2.0 Stained, needs attention.Orange 2 2.0 Warm, friendly.

McDonalds McDonaldsRed/Pink/Lilac/Maroon/Cyan 11 11.5 Predominant color, vibrant, lively, warm, in your face color, welcoming, pretty.

Burger King Burger KingRed/Pink 51 51.0 Friendly, bright, comfortable, energetic, exciting, warm, welcoming, happy,

vibrant, bold passion, strong, brash, bold, color of chairs, seating, signs, logoand power.

McDonalds McDonaldsBeige/Cream/Peach 13 13.7 Bland, dull, neutral, boring, plain.

McDonalds McDonaldsGreen 8 8.4 Predominant color, cool, peaceful, refreshing, calm, relaxing.

Burger King Burger KingGreen 2 2.0 Clear, freedom, simplicity, nice.

McDonalds McDonaldsBlue 13 13.7 Calm, peaceful, pleasant, clean, cold, bland, basic.

Burger King Burger KingBlue 14 14.0 Bright, caring, clean, cold, clinical, modern, neutral, depressing.

McDonalds McDonaldsBlack/Grey/Silver 20 21.0 Standard, bad, boring, dull, outdated, plain, bland, cold, dark, no individuality,

ordinary.

Burger King Burger KingGrey/Silver 11 11.0 Bland, basic, clinical, regimented, uninspiring, old, worn out, uniform,

mundane.

McDonalds McDonaldsYellow/Gold 14 14.7 Bright, cheerful, relaxed, eye catching, fresh, clean, bright, warm, welcoming,

color of logo, good quality.

Burger King Burger KingYellow 11 11.0 Accessible, bright, cheerful, nice, welcoming, alive, happy, pleasant, relaxed,

busy.

McDonalds McDonaldsWhite 6 6.3 Clean, bright, neat, light, plain, open.

Burger King Burger KingWhite 5 5.0 Clean, clinical, sanitized, sterile, impersonal, little personality, relaxing, quality.

holds for the service aspects of hospitality.Here there was again a remarkable consistencybetween the colors chosen and the reasonsgiven to explain these choices by the fastfood restaurant, and earlier hotel, respondents(see Table 1.5). Although there were somedifferences and inconsistencies between the twosets of results in terms of whether a color waschosen for negative, neutral or positive reasonsthere was enough commonality to suggest that

certain colors are always, or at the very leastgenerally, used to denote positive, neutral ornegative impressions and judgments. Therefore,in common with the colors and physical aspectsabove, it should also be possible to developa more parsimonious instrument in this respectin the future.

The range of animals associated with thephysical and service aspects by the fast foodrestaurant customers was somewhat wider than



Table 1.5 Words used to describe the service aspects of hospitality in the restaurantsas a color

Color group n % Reasons why

McDonalds McDonaldsOrange/Gold 3 3.0 Bright, colorful, good vibes, good quality.Brown/Amber 6 6.0 Bad, dull, poor hygiene, unfriendly, robotic, rude.

Burger King Burger KingBrown 1 1.0 Bad service.

McDonalds McDonaldsBlue 10 10.0 Calm, clean, polite, easy going, approachable, uniforms, efficient.

Burger King Burger KingBlue 20 20.0 Calm, caring, relaxed, welcome, clean, cool, friendly, honest, genuine,

uniforms, confused, miserable, forgetful.

McDonalds McDonaldsRed/Pink/Purple 26 26.0 Bright, cheerful, pleasant, warm, welcoming, active, quick, enthusiastic, fast,

speedy, inviting, synthetic, fake, rushed.

Burger King Burger KingRed/Pink/Purple 18 18.0 Bright, cheerful, rushed, welcoming, friendly, hot, fast, frantic, staff uniforms.

McDonalds McDonaldsGreen 4 4.0 Fresh, good, welcoming.

Burger King Burger KingGreen 3 3.0 Healthy, safe, hygienic, warm, simple, boring.

McDonalds McDonaldsCream/Magnolia/Beige 6 6.0 Bland, lacks personality, calm, dull, no frills.

Burger King Burger KingCream/Magnolia 3 3.0 Background color, unoffensive, bland.

McDonalds McDonaldsGrey/Silver/Black 21 21.0 Robotic, awful, rude, dark, depressed, no smile, unfriendly, bland, banal,

regimented, bored, monotonous, dull, lifeless, cold, ordinary, predictable,unenthusiastic.

Burger King Burger KingGrey/Black 15 15.0 Slow, bad communication, dull, boring, disappointing, uninterested,

monotonous, drab, not hospitable, no interaction, no enthusiasm, unfriendly.

McDonalds McDonaldsWhite 6 6.0 Bright, fresh, pleasant, clinical, efficient, quick, good service.

Burger King Burger KingWhite 12 12.0 Basic, bland, clean, efficient, helpful, not creative, quick, impersonal, plain.

those selected by the hotel guests in the priorstudy (see Tables 1.6 and 1.7) but there wasconsistency between the two sets of respondentsin terms of the type of animal seen torepresent a negative, neutral or negative viewof both. Once again this suggest that the same‘reductionist’ process referred to above couldbe applied to this element of the instrument inthe future.

Finally, consistency was equally evidentbetween the results from the earlier study andthose from the fast food restaurant customersin relation to choosing a season of the year toreflect their impressions and judgments of the

physical and service aspects of hospitality (seeTables 1.8 and 1.9). In short, Spring and Summerwere chosen for positive andAutumn and Winterfor negative reasons. Moving along a scale fromvery positive to very negative the arrangementwould be – Summer, Spring, Autumn, Winter.Once more this holds out the prospect of usinga more standardized form in the future.

Nevertheless more work does need to be doneto test these postulates in a wider range ofhospitality environments and differing cultures.One issue that could not be resolved in thesestudies, because of the composition of the sam-ples, was how sensitive the instrument may be



Table 1.6 Words used to describe the physical aspects of hospitality in the restaurantsas an animal

Animal n % Reasons why

McDonalds McDonaldsCat 16 16.0 Calm, relaxing, capable, clean, cuddly, friendly, warm, happy, slow, tame, ordinary,

common.

Burger King Burger KingCat 23 23.0 Calm, clean, tidy, pleasant, warm, welcoming, friendly, relaxed, tame, well

groomed.

McDonalds McDonaldsHorse 1 1.0 Reliable, steady.

Burger King Burger KingHorse 2 2.0 Not glamorous, gets the job done, just there to do a job.

McDonalds McDonaldsBear 5 5.0 Big, clumsy, sturdy, cuddly, enveloping, bright, clean, no fuss, no extras.

McDonalds McDonaldsElephant 6 6.0 Big, noisy, slow, sturdy, slow.

Burger King Burger KingElephant 5 6.0 Large, inviting, trustworthy, hardwearing, clumsy.

McDonalds McDonaldsDog 13 13.0 Friendly, helpful, warm, welcoming, loyal, reliable, comforting, familiar, pleasant,

pleased to see you.

Burger King Burger KingDog 13 13.0 Clean, tidy, comfortable, cute, friendly, convenient, loyal, warm, inviting, soft,

cuddly, energetic, scruffy, shaggy, raggy.

McDonalds McDonaldsBird 4 4.0 Common, nothing special, staff shuffle around the restaurant, nice if well kept.

Burger King Burger KingBird 14 14.0 Vibrant colors, bright, attractive, colorful, dynamic, American style décor, different

colors.

McDonalds McDonaldsInsect 6 6.0 Unclean, dirty, poor service.

Burger King Burger KingInsect 1 1.0 Damp, dirty toilets.

McDonalds McDonaldsRabbit 5 5.0 Calm, serene, friendly, soft, homely, welcoming, neat, quiet.

McDonalds McDonaldsFish 8 8.0 Calm, chilled, clean, peaceful, streamlined, well designed, boring.

Burger King Burger KingFish 4 8.0 Calm, tranquil, appealing, all the same, no difference.

McDonalds McDonaldsPig 6 6.0 Unhealthy food, unhealthy people, manners.

Burger King Burger KingPig 2 2.0 Dirty.

McDonalds McDonaldsCow 1 1.0 Burgers

Burger King Burger KingCow 7 7.0 Not clever, you take what you want and leave, providing food, beef.

McDonalds McDonaldsMonkey 4 4.0 Appealing to kids, circus atmosphere, fun.

Burger King Burger KingMonkey 3 3.0 Bright, bubbly, helpful, grabs attention, in your face.

(Continued)



Table 1.6 cont’d


McDonalds McDonaldsReptile 2 2.0 Cold, hard, not lovable, not warm.

Burger King Burger KingReptile 4 4.0 Chirpy, fast, physically sound, old, worn out.

McDonalds McDonaldsRodent 1 1.0 Unattractive.

Burger King Burger KingRodent 3 3.0 Routine, dashing about, doesn’t do a lot, not noticed.

McDonalds McDonaldsOther Animals – Sheep (3), Sloth (2),Armadillo (2), Goat (2), Hippo (2),Donkey, Fox, Hyena, Lemming, Panda,Squirrel, Wombat.

18 18.0 Follows orders, follows the crowd, white andcomfortable. Little effort, slow, dull. Hard,uncomfortable. Dull, boring, unwelcoming. Big, fat,tranquil, spacey. Happy meal toys. Pessimistic. Awfulmusic. A bit of a joke, follows what other do. Gentle.Uncomfortable, unapproachable. Filthy.

Burger King Burger KingOther Animals – Zebra (2), Buffalo,Giraffe, Sloth, Dinosaur, Donkey,Hippo, Panda, Skunk, Wolf.

11 11.0 Black and white floor and tiling. Chaotic but patterned.Two-tone coloring. Lazy, boring. Old retro-feel, cool,not bad. Works for money, alone, no motivation.Adequate. Always eating. Black and white. Loud,aggressive presence felt.

Table 1.7 Words used to describe the service aspects of hospitality in the restaurantsas an animal


McDonalds McDonaldsDog 23 23.0 Caring, friendly, helpful, polite, loyal, obedient, quick, simple, attentive,

welcoming, subservient, likes to please.

Burger King Burger KingDog 14 14.0 Docile, safe, loyal, eager to please, willing to help, friendly, fast, efficient, obedient,

quick, reliable.

McDonalds McDonaldsCat 17 17.0 Approachable, clean, reliable, friendly, happy, polite, pleasant, non-threatening.

Burger King Burger KingCat 24 24.0 Attractive, beautiful, friendly, helpful, temperamental, harmless, tame, quick,

efficient, timid, dependable, free-thinking, subtle.

McDonalds McDonaldsFish 10 10.0 Efficient, quick, fast, kind, pleasant, ruthless, friendly, tired, helpless.

Burger King Burger KingFish 6 6.0 Cold, efficient, neutral, nothing special, shuffling around, inoffensive.

McDonalds McDonaldsInsect 8 8.0 Filthy, slow, not organized, not expressive, agitated, likely to snap, all follow the

same orders.

Burger King Burger KingInsect 9 9.0 Annoying, fast, disorientated, many colors, efficient.

McDonalds McDonaldsSheep 5 5.0 Follows orders, same standard pattern, no extras, quiet, slow, unexciting.

Burger King Burger KingSheep 3 3.0 No difference in personalities, staff stick to the corporate instructions, a lot of staff.

(Continued)



Table 1.7 cont’d


McDonalds McDonaldsReptile 5 5.0 Doesn’t go anywhere, slow, staff are hopping around

to serve orders.

Burger King Burger KingReptile 6 6.0 Fast, quick, precise, slow, unresponsive.

McDonalds McDonaldsSloth 3 3.0 Lazy, incompetent, slow, unenthusiastic.

Burger King Burger KingSloth 6 6.0 Lazy, slipshod, slow, laidback, rude.

McDonalds McDonaldsRodent 4 4.0 Busy, unhappy, fidgety, no personality, small,

indiscriminant.

Burger King Burger KingRodent 4 4.0 Doesn’t do a lot, expressionless, quiet, quick.

McDonalds McDonaldsMonkey 4 4.0 Circus atmosphere, fun, funny.

Burger King Burger KingMonkey 2 2.0 Helpful, not serious.

McDonalds McDonaldsBird 1 1.0 Cheerful.

Burger King Burger KingBird 4 4.0 Fast, staff run around like headless chickens.

McDonalds McDonaldsOther Animals – Rabbit (3), Donkey (2),Fox (2), Bear, Elephant, Kangaroo,Goat, Pig.

12 12.0 Calm, serene, friendly, soft, neat, quiet. Hard working,not enjoying their job, doing a good job. Fast, quick,unaware of its motives and morals. Cuddly. Big style.Quick. Only interested in getting food. Grunting,cheerful.

Burger King Burger KingOther Animals – Horse (3), Elephant(2), Cow (2), Pig (2), Rabbit, Hyena,Mule, Panda.

13 13.0 Fast, friendly, hardworking. Large, inviting, doing whatis necessary, no customer interaction. Lazy, providingfood. Fatty food, offering to increase meal size. Jumpfor attention and then back away when approached.Always smiling. Not fast. Kind.

to different cultural perceptions and cognitionsof colors, animals and seasons. Because thecomposition of the samples in these two studieswas dominated by White-European respondentsthe opportunity did not arise to test thisparticular issue. However, given that both thegeneral literature on comparative, cross-culturalresearch and Brotherton (1999c; 2000; 2003b)identifies the crucial importance of establishingan appropriate, valid and reliable ‘comparativebase’, this work has initiated a process designedto develop such a basis for comparison andthus has moved the hospitality field closer toa position where both the conceptual basisof hospitality and the ability to systematically

apply a comparative framework to address thegeneric-specific debate can proceed with greaterclarity.

As we noted earlier in this chapter, there isa strong underlying theme in the hospitalityliterature per se that takes the view that par-ticipation in any hospitality exchange situation,and associated relationship, is voluntary on thepart of the parties entering into this exchange.In many respects this may be true as thevast majority of hospitality situations are non-coercive in the strict sense of the term. Peoplegenerally participate in hospitality exchangeswithout being forced to do so. However, toview voluntarism as a universal principle and



Table 1.8 Words used to describe the physical aspects of hospitality in the restaurantsas a season

Season n % Reasons why

McDonalds McDonaldsAutumn 32 32.3 Dull, past its best, boring, colors are red and brown, drab, not bright but not sunny,

décor, interior tables.

Burger King Burger KingAutumn 19 19.2 Bland, plain, cool, dull, past its best, predominant colors, not memorable, quiet, sad,

unenthusiastic.

McDonalds McDonaldsWinter 21 21.2 Bare, minimal, cold, grey, depressing, miserable, uncomfortable, lonely, harsh lighting.

Burger King Burger KingWinter 20 20.2 Calm, quiet, cold, colorless, dreary, unwelcoming, dark, gloomy, depressing, nothing

exciting.

McDonalds McDonaldsSpring 26 26.3 Fresh, clean, warm, bright, airy, exciting, cheerful, color scheme, youthful.

Burger King Burger KingSpring 21 21.2 Warm, welcoming, bright, clean, hope, light, optimistic, fresh, lively, colorful,

blossoming.

McDonalds McDonaldsSummer 20 20.2 Bright, colorful, comfortable, easy going, fresh, sunny, warm, vacation, fun, relaxing.

Burger King Burger KingSummer 39 39.4 Alive, vibrant, warm, attractive, pleasant, cheerful, bright, hot, lively, happy, summer

colors, refreshing, big.

Table 1.9 Words used to describe the service aspects of hospitality in the restaurants asa season

Season n % Reasons why

McDonalds McDonaldsAutumn 15 15.0 Bad, boring, breezy, dull, mediocre, no excitement, no extremes, in between warm

and cold, impersonal, not sunny.

Burger King Burger KingAutumn 22 22.2 Average, bland, cold, dark, dull, dying, neither good nor bad, sad, unenthusiastic,

poor attitude, fake smiles.

McDonalds McDonaldsWinter 31 31.0 Miserable, cold, uninviting, depressing, frosty, dull, gloomy, lonely, tired,

unaccommodating.

Burger King Burger KingWinter 23 23.2 Grimy, cold, colorless, unwelcoming, slow, unhappy staff, miserable, dull, gloomy,

disappointing, rushed.

McDonalds McDonaldsSpring 24 24.0 Bright, airy, happy, sunny, cheerful, fast, fresh, clean, pleasant, appealing, youthful,

warm, inviting, friendly.

Burger King Burger KingSpring 23 23.2 Bright, cheerful, busy, clean, fresh, new beginnings, new life, young, friendly,

helpful, smiling faces.

McDonalds McDonaldsSummer 30 30.0 Bright, attractive, colorful, friendly, easy going, pleasant, happy, hot, pressured,

smiling, polite, approachable.

Burger King Burger King

Summer 31 31.3 Busy, cheerful, warm, happy, friendly, relaxed, hot, smiling, welcoming, pleasant.



characteristic of hospitality exchanges may betoo simplistic and, in some cases, probablyincorrect. This issue really revolves around how‘voluntarism’is conceived. If we take an extremeview and see this as the absence of physicalcoercion then it may well be a valid proposition.However, there are other forms of coercion,psychological, emotional, social, economic etc.,that may have a role to play in making, at leastsome forms of hospitality less voluntaristic thanis widely assumed.

We will explore these issues presently butprior to this it should also be noted thatthey are closely associated with the ‘host-guest’ or ‘self-other’ dichotomy. Much of theliterature focusing on these, provider-receiver,issues takes the view that there is a munificentrelationship between these two parties, and thatthe host or provider of hospitality seeks toprotect and keep safe the guest or receiverof the hospitality while he/she is within thehost’s domain. This is closely connected withthe welcoming, valuing and protection ofthe ‘stranger’ discussed earlier. Indeed theFrench philosophical tradition (see Jelloun,1999; Bowlby, 2000) consistently invokes theview that ‘true’, ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ hos-pitality is given and received in a totallyvoluntaristic and selfless manner. The corollarybeing that any ulterior motive or influencecontaminates this action and renders it ascontrived, false or inauthentic. If purity isviewed in such a philosophical manner thenthis may be true but real world behaviorinvariably is not predicated upon such loftythought. Most people’s behavior, includingthat associated with hospitality, is driven bymore instrumental motives that, in turn, modifynot only the motivation and reasoning lyingbehind the provision of hospitality but also itsmanifestation.

One of the dominant forms of social con-nectivity and loyalty, whether for voluntary ormore pre-determined reasons, over time hasbeen the ‘group’. The group, whether basedon tribal kinship, caste, religion, social class,family, economic activity, or other criteria,and regardless of whether it is conceived atmacro or micro levels always exhibits onekey characteristic; a centripetal force thatserves to bind its membership into a cohesiveentity. Of course, the strength of this force isvariable but where it is stronger it serves todifferentiate the group more from other groupsby encouraging, if not coercing in varying

ways, its members to see their individual self-interests as synonymous with those of the groupas a whole. Conversely, where the centripetalforce is weaker the group becomes less cohesiveand the interests of its members become moreindividualistic and self-serving. In short, thevery antithesis of a cohesive group, centrifugalforces come into play.

The point of this is that, for the individual,voluntarism is relative, and therefore it is hardto see how hospitality, in the vast majorityof its manifestations, can be regarded aspure and authentic when there is always aninstrumental referent emanating from the natureof the individual’s connectivity within the milieuthat he/she exists. This may be something asrelatively esoteric as a spiritual belief, i.e.that the person’s God wishes them to expresstheir religiosity and faith through engagingin the provision of hospitality to others lessfortunate then themselves (see Murray, 1990)or something far more earthly and concrete, forexample, because they believe that by providinghospitality to others in a position to assist theireconomic well being is a rational and sensiblething to do, i.e. corporate hospitality being oneinstance and political hospitality another (seeHollander, 1981). One of the major underlyingissues that is said to transgress all, or nearlyall, instrumental hospitality exchanges is the,invariably implicit, expectation of reciprocityas a product of the obligations establishedbetween the participants within the act itself.What is rarely, if ever, explored in thiscontext is the nature of the power relationsand dynamics established by, and operatingwithin this exchange, and their implicationsfor any future exchanges, a point recognizedby Sherry, McGrath and Levy (1993) who,in their exploration of the darker side of giftgiving, suggest that these types of exchangecan engender high levels of anxiety amongstthe participants.

Most societies, both those existing in the pastand today, have tended to value the conceptand practice of hospitality, albeit in varyingforms and to varying degrees, because it tendsto have a moderating influence on the tensionsinherent within any society that has structuralinequalities of one kind or another. Prior tothe establishment of propertied, class societiesBell and Henry (2001) argue that the tribalsocieties pre-dating this change embodied ‘therule of hospitality’ which constituted the basisfor a universal social relationship within such



societies. Under these conditions hospitality –‘the mutual right and obligation to receiveand provide subsistence’ (Bell and Henry,2001: 211) – was a kinship duty because ofthe collective nature of social and economicorganization and necessary for the survival ofthe tribe. This collective equality, and henceother relationships based on it, disappears withthe advent of money, debt and private propertythat, in turn, leads to increasing commodificationand a desire to establish quantitative equivalencewithin exchange relationships to reflect relativevalue within an exchange. Over time thismigrates to societies that reflect these changingpower relationships, within which power elitesand dependents of one kind or another signifythe asymmetrical ownership and control over themeans and processes of production and survival.As this evolves, the provision of hospitality fromthose who control these means and processesbecomes a political imperative, albeit oftendressed in the guise of a social or religious obli-gation, to moderate any potential revolutionarytendencies within the mass of the populationwho are dependent on the power elites. So,for example, from feudal times, when thepower elites provided hospitality for those lessfortunate while simultaneously exploiting them(White, 1968), through ameliorating charitableprovision in early industrial societies to morecontemporary concepts of welfare provisionin advanced societies the establishment ofobligations and expectations of reciprocity haveserved to act as a form of social control. Thus, theparticular form that hospitality takes, whetherviewed historically or contemporaneously, isbound to vary because of temporal and/or spatialvariation in the conditions that give rise to it.On the other hand, the underlying reasons for itsprovision and, in turn, their basic purpose/s havein essence not changed since the emergence ofpropertied societies. They have always been, andcontinue to remain, those designed to primarilyprotect the interests of the provider, whoeverand whatever that may be.

Regardless of whether this is viewed froma societal, or a more macro-perspective, or onecloser to most peoples’experience of hospitality,i.e. at a domestic or commercial level, the prin-ciples hold. In commercial hospitality provisionthere are hosts and guests and essentially thesame expectations of obligation and reciprocity,although the issues of direct monetary exchangedo muddy the waters somewhat. Nevertheless,the provider has its vested interests and seeks to

inculcate these in the more explicit ‘contractual’obligations pertinent to the exchange rather thanthese being known as unspoken ‘norms’ bythe receiver. What is different in commercialhospitality provision from that provided ona non-commercial basis is that the basic structureof the situation and process moves from beingdyadic to triadic. This complicates mattersand leads to competing loyalties, as Mars andNicod’s (1984) The World of Waiters studydemonstrated. There are now (at least) threegroups directly involved in the hospitalityexchange; the provider (the company), the guest(the consumer) and the deliverer (the staff) thatis, in turn, mediated by monetary exchange.

What is interesting here, and something thathas received relatively scant attention in theliterature, is that although commercial hospital-ity exchange environments include rules, rolesand rituals, in common with non-commercialenvironments, these are likely to generatedifferent hospitality ‘repertoires’ because, atleast in part, the assumption of voluntarismcannot be equally applied to the participants inthe exchange.Although it would be reasonable toassume that the companies involved in providinghospitality have voluntarily, within competingcommercial options, decided to enter into thisform of business this cannot be so easily assumedin the case of the other two parties. While,on the one hand, it is probably true to saythat, in most cases, the people who work inthe hospitality industry have not been coercedinto doing this against their will it may beequally fair to comment that, on the other hand,many such employees make this choice on thebasis that it provides a job with income butnot on the basis that it is their ideal formof employment. Similarly, in the case of theguest or consumer, some do make the choiceto stay in a hotel or eat out etc on a free andvoluntary basis. Equally, however, others donot. For example, people traveling on business,whether internationally or domestically, aredoing so as an integral part of their job and thenecessity of using commercial accommodationand/or eating establishments while engaged inthis travel is a forced choice. Under thesecircumstances, where employees may not reallywish to be hospitality deliverers and guestsmay not particularly wish to stay or eat ina hospitality establishment, at best it is clearof quasi-voluntarism that the traditional host –guest view of hospitality, and all that this implies,needs to be modified.



CONCLUSION

In our Introduction to this volume we notedthat investigations of the concept and meaningof ‘hospitality’ have been relatively sporadicand, more recent investigations, principally fromwithin the community of hospitality researchers,have amounted to very little. The two areconnected. Recent investigation of the conceptof hospitality has been unsystematic, reflectingboth the piecemeal tradition in hospitality(management) research as well as reluctanceto engage with the range of philosophical andsocial scientific literature where considerationof the nature of hospitality has taken place.This collection of essays edited by Lashleyand Morrison (2000) evidences this. Whileconstituting the major recent resource fordebates about the nature of hospitality, thevolume consists principally of a disparate, iffascinatingly valuable, collection of fragmentedinsights into the topic.

Of course, to argue in this way is tocourt accusations of both inconsistency and‘control freakery’. In respect of consistency,it can be fairly argued that considerationof the nature of hospitality and hospital-ity management outside the community ofhospitality management researchers has itselfbeen piecemeal. Accordingly, for an area ofinvestigation still in its infancy, there is meritin garnering as many perspectives as possiblein order to generate insights and opportunitiesfor further investigative refinement. On the‘control freakery’ question, an objection mightbe that there is little to be gained in seekingto generate highly delimited frameworks for‘testing’ particular investigative routes as thesemay embody the possibility that some suchroutes will be effectively closed off. Neitherof these positions really holds much water.There can be no reasonable objection to thegeneration of as many insights as possible ininvestigating and refining any phenomenon.However, if this activity studiously avoidsboth establishing linkages to what has gonebefore and contributes little to conceptualrefinement and understanding, then what is leftis a situation best represented by the popularmisunderstanding of the meaning of Occam’srazor, of multiplying entities beyond necessity.On the question of developing models to ‘test’,we are well aware of the positivist overtonesof such a position. Nevertheless, a readingof that literature which has addressed the

meanings of hospitality does suggest profitableavenues of investigation that are in dangerof being ignored. Negligence for negligence’ssake does not constitute a rational researchstrategy.

The nature of hospitality is an important topicof research and not only for those engaged withhospitality management. It is, as we have seen,largely neglected in philosophical, economicand sociological research, it is on the peripheryof social investigation like other, ‘taken forgranted’ (even by sociologists!) aspects ofhuman behavior such as food and eating (thelatter, as we noted in the Introduction to thisHandbook, a not infrequent complaint of socio-logists of food). For hospitality management,the importance of systematically extendingour understanding of the concept cannot beunderestimated. It is not simply a questionof ‘knowing what we are talking about’. Itis about seeking to build a framework thatmay have conceptual and methodological utilityin supporting investigation of the wide rangeof subject applications applied to ‘hospitalitymanagement’ represented in this volume.

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