Hospitality Experience

Frans Melissen, Jean-Pièrre van der Rest, Stan Josephi, Rob Blomme

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000038156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Hostelería, viajes y turismo

Hospitality Experience offers students an exciting introduction to key aspects of hospitality management.

The authors providea refreshing focus on how hospitality experiences can be created and managed successfully. With acomprehensive overview of the hospitality industry, the textbook familiarizes students with the basics of hospitality management and offers analysis as well as cases and practical examples.

Designed primarily for entry-level students at all levels, the book will also be of interest to professionals working in the business.

1
The concept of hospitality

Frans Melissen

Frans Melissen

This first chapter introduces you to the origins and history of the concept of hospitality and the on-going debate in academia on the meaning of hospitality. We use the lessons that can be learnt from this to define hospitality experiences and explain our approach towards managing hospitality experiences. Finally, we provide an overview of the contents and explain the links between the remaining chapters of this book.

1. Concept
2. Experiences
3. Origins of hospitality
4. Behaviour
5. Hostility
6. Hospitality
7. Relationship
8. Virtue
9. Hospitality as an industry
10. Industry
11. Schools of thought
12. Genuine hospitableness
13. Holy trinity
14. Host
15. Guest
16. Social and cultural level
17. Domestic or private level
18. Commercial level
19. Experience economy
20. Hospitality experiences
21. Multidisciplinary approach

Quotable quotes on hospitality

Here is a selection of quotes on hospitality that you will find if you type in the words memorable, quotes, and hospitality in a Google search:

’Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.’

— Washington Irving

‘The hospitality of the wigwam is only limited by the institution of war.’

— Charles Eastman

‘I’ve got high standards when it comes to boys. As my dad says, all girls should! I’m from the South – Tennessee, to be exact – and down there, we’re all about southern hospitality. I know that if I like a guy, he better be nice, and above all, my dad has to approve of him!’

— Miley Cirus

‘When hospitality becomes an art it loses its very soul.’

— Max Beerbohm

‘No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.’

— Samuel Johnson

‘When I sell liquor, it’s called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it’s called hospitality.’

— Al Capone

‘Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even though you wish they were.’

— unknown

‘In hospitality, the chief thing is the goodwill.’

— Greek proverb

Al Capone: the godfather of hospitality?

1.1 Hospitality?

Shared understanding

Particular emotions

Hospitality is a fascinating word we all use regularly. We all seem to have some sort of shared understanding of its meaning. Indeed, in our business – the hospitality industry – it is our shared reference point, the characteristic that distinguishes us from others. Many of us associate hospitality with particular emotions. This is why some quotes that kick off this chapter refer to things like the heart, the soul, and goodwill. If someone comments on a hotel or restaurant, for instance on a customer reviews site on the internet, in terms of ‘hospitality seems to be something unknown to them’ or ‘they lack the basics of hospitality’, you would probably think twice before booking a stay or dinner. Interestingly enough, many of us would feel confident we made the right decision not to book, even without information on the quality of the hotel’s rooms or the restaurant’s food. Somehow, the room and the food are not all that matters. Sometimes they are not the deciding factor for customers’ purchasing decisions, even if you could argue that they do represent the actual product on offer.

Hospitality

Ultimately, whether you are willing to pay for a room or food is determined by something more than objective facts and figures about that room or food. That something is usually related to what we call hospitality. Many of us feel perfectly comfortable using hospitality as an important consideration in our final decision. The fact that hospitality might be hard to define or to measure does not change that. An engineer would probably not get that. A scientist might accuse you of basing your decision on subjective data. An economist would tell you that your decision makes no sense without a proper cost/benefit analysis. And a hotel manager? He would tell you that you are right. He would have no problem referring to hospitality as the reason why you are willing to book a room in his hotel.

Hospitality is not just a word

Concept

The previous section concluded that we all have a sort of shared understanding of what hospitality means. However, you could question whether this really is true. It is difficult to explain the exact meaning of hospitality and provide a definition that we all would agree with. In fact, ask ten people to define hospitality and you would probably get ten explanations. To understand this we need to realise that hospitality is not just a word; it also represents a concept. A concept is not something that you can point to or touch or take into your hands. A concept is something intangible that exists only in our minds. That is why most dictionaries define it as something conceived in the mind, as an abstract or generalised idea that relates to the characteristics of a particular object of thought. Hospitality is such an object of thought.

Contexts

A key element of this explanation of concept is generalised. Concepts are not just ideas but generalised ideas. They do not describe just one instance of something, but rather what various instances have in common. To illustrate what this means, consider the concept of love. Once again, it is probably clear to most of us what this concept refers to. It is some sort of emotion. Love has something to do with affection and attachment. However, you can use the concept of love in various contexts. For instance, you could say you love your girlfriend or your mother. However, you can also love Christmas or a book or a boy band. You can love the colour green, or love doing nothing on a Sunday morning, or even love reading books on the concept of hospitality. All these examples refer to the same concept, but that same concept is applied in very different contexts. The concept stays the same, but the situations and actions it refers to are different. The same applies to the concept of hospitality.

Jumeirah to be hospitality partner for Ladies Masters

• gulfnews.com

Dubai: Dubai-based luxury hospitality company, Jumeirah, has joined hands with ‘golf in DUBAi’ as the official caterer and hospitality partner for the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters, at the Emirates Golf Club from December 14-17.

‘We believe that “golf in DUBAi” plays an important role in the development and promotion of this exhilarating game in our city. We are proud to be associated with them, and the quality of professional golfers and spectator experience that they bring to Dubai,’ said Thatcher Brown, Jumeirah’s vice president of brand strategy and management.

Mohammad Juma Bu Amim, vice-chairman and CEO of ‘golf in DUBAi’, said: ‘The Omega Dubai Ladies Masters gives a worldwide exposure to the city and the sponsors, creating interest for people to visit Dubai. Thanks to Jumeirah, the players always have a wonderful opportunity to savour the incomparable hospitality standards of the region.’

December 1, 2011

Golf cupcake

Hospitality is a mystifying concept

However, although the concept of love can relate to very different contexts, you could argue that the basic feelings that are linked to love are always similar. Regardless of context, love refers to positive emotions. It refers to the opposite of hate and to liking something or someone instead of disliking them. Therefore, love is a relatively clear and straightforward concept. The same does not apply to hospitality.

Mystifying

Indeed, this is exactly why hospitality is such a mystifying concept. Like any other concept, it can be used in various contexts and, somehow, using the concept ‘hospitality’ to describe what is happening does seem to help us to interpret the situation. However, unlike love, hospitality can refer to highly dissimilar emotions. For example, consider these two types of companies that operate in the hospitality industry:

Interior of the Wentworth Mansion

Emotions

1. The first type is a chain of hotels that goes by the name Historic Hotels of America. These hotels are all about recreating and reliving the atmosphere of times long gone. To be part of this chain, a hotel must be at least 50 years old and must have historic significance. One hotel in this chain is the Wentworth Mansion. A quick tour of the website tells us that it offers 21 guest rooms and suites with antique furnishings, carved marble fireplaces, and oversized whirlpool tubs. Here, hospitality relates to such things as enjoying a book on the secrets of the history of the region you are visiting, sitting in a comfortable leather chair in front of a crackling fire, conveniently located just where the waiters can and will keep an eye on the level of bourbon in your glass.
2. The second type of company relates to the growing number of hotels and restaurants that offer guests the opportunity to experience dining in the dark. This concept originated in Switzerland in the early 1990s and has quickly spread over Europe and, more recently, is attracting attention in the USA. Hotels and restaurants offering these dinners usually refer to it as a unique experience. Apparently your taste buds, and senses of smell and hearing are stimulated very differently when your brain does not have to deal with visual stimuli at the same time. Dining in the dark allows guests to taste and experience a meal like they have never done before.

Industry

Experiences

Without going into the details of what exactly is involved in dining in the dark, clearly a dinner like that would be quite different from a stay in the Wentworth Mansion. However, both the Wentworth Mansion and a hotel or restaurant offering dining in t...