Hospitality: care or shares?

Philemon and Baucis was an old couple who, according to Ovid (Metamorphoses 8:621-96) once gave hospitality in their humble cottage to two travellers who had been turned away from other, richer houses. During supper, to the hosts' astonishment, the wine bowl miraculously replenished itself; their only goose, which they would have killed for the occasion, flew to the visitors for refuge. Jupiter and Mercury, for it was they, then revealed themselves to Philemon and Baucis, and took them up to the mountainside where they observed that the whole country was covered with flood waters, except for the cottage which had been changed into a temple. Granted a wish by Jupiter, the old man and woman chose to be priests of the temple. At their death they were changed into an oak and a lime tree. painting in oil by David Ryckaert the Younger (Antwerp, 1612-1661) from: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/r/ryckaert/philemon.html

This is the first, introductory, edition of a series of posts about hospitality:

An inquiry into the extent to which values of caring an/or profitability are motivating drives for job performance in the hospitality industry

Rationale
As a lecturer at the International Hospitality and Office Management School (IH&OM) of Leeuwarden I conducted numerous interviews with candidate students to see what their motivations and attitudes were before they would be admitted to our school. The school, an institute educating future managers in hotels and other hospitality organisations (mostly commercial businesses) was attractive for many of them because they offered the opportunity for a job in which it was crucial to arrange an environment for people where they could find themselves at ease and relaxed by good lodging facilities, meals and other staying services. This was also what these young people were looking for: a job that offered this opportunity. They were prepared and motivated to take the disadvantageous working hours, the stress-causing peaks and troughs in demand, the low wages and difficult career opportunities into account. Many of them already had experience with this work and wanted to develop themselves in the industry. Some of them dreamt of starting their own hotel or restaurant. “Pampering people” was their main motivation. Next to this they also were attracted to “see something of the world” because of the opportunities to have an internship or follow a module of the programme in other parts of the world, putting themselves in a position of a guest themselves, being a fellow craft (not an apprentice anymore) in a historically old duty, but new profession, before becoming a master by their graduation. Caring for guests and being a guest themselves, offering and enjoying hospitality.
In her Christian-inspired book “Making Room” Christine Pohl (Pohl, 1999) makes clear that being a guest and a host alternately and/or simultaneously is a characteristic of Jesus Christ. For Christians Jesus Christ represents the ultimate role model of the Good Man. In the Rule of Benedict it is ordered to the monks to receive a poor guest just like Jesus Christ Himself. The idea is however not typical for the Christian faith. Around AD 0 the “pagan” Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso wrote his “Metamorphoses”, a series of myths about the theme “metamorphosis” (transition from one form into another). In one famous story the chief god Jove and his son Mercure transformed themselves into poor beggars, asking for food and shelter to an old couple, Philemon and his wife Baucis, who gave all food they had for a meal with their guest, and got richly rewarded, not in a material sense but spiritually: their humble hut became a temple and after their long life as temple-servants they became two trees standing close together, with their branches intertwined, as a monument for their hospitable example. Examples of this self-sacrificing hospitality can be found anywhere, especially in times of extreme need and danger, both in myths and reality (a.o. Braithwaite, 2003).

Early travellers such as Erasmus and John Calvin already complained about the disappearance of genuine hospitality, which they didn’t associate with inns at all, on the contrary: inns were places where lodging and food was offered at high prices and the “guest” was exploited with a minimum of comfort. In the 21st century, the lodging and restaurant industry carries the name of “hospitality” in their banner with pride and certainly this industry offers far more than the medieval and 17th century inns. It is even said that the guest’s wishes determine what is being offered, and how it is offered. But the guest has to pay. It is not the poor beggar, nor the poor traveller knocking on the doors of the Benedict monastery, no, the guest has first to be checked if he will be able to pay or if he has paid for this so-called hospitality.

Noticing the motives of young people attracted by “careful” hospitality one wonders if something of this universally present value of hospitality might have been left in the motivation of hospitality workers and managers. The profit pursued by hotels and restaurants is only possible if caring for guests and a “caring attitude” is real. The guest cannot be cheated: even the most luxurious and outstanding service will fail if offered by people who are primarily interested in profit. It seems worthwhile to investigate this assumption.

Defining the concept

Hospitality is a phenomenon that is present in practically all known cultures, and dates from ancient times. Traditionally, and still nowadays, outside business social contexts, the values that underlie this concept are still known and cherished. Hospitality is a multi-faceted concept, which means that it refers to a moral obligation, recognizable for members of a group or society within the same culture. This regulation is driven by deeply felt, but often unconscious assumptions about what is appropriate behaviour in a given situation. Thus it results in behaviour which is recognizable for members of a shared culture as hospitality behaviour. This behaviour takes the form of a ritual between host and guest: both know their role, and breaking the code or “script” means offence or potential conflict between the two inter-actors. This pattern is applicable to situations ranging from very concrete and identifiable, to general, sometimes almost metaphorical situations such as religious functions, the reception of refugees, etc. It also applies to cultural traits and peoples’ characters, potentially leading to observable behaviour.

Hospitality in pre-industrial societies (by far the greatest part of our cultural history) is almost exclusively free of any (obliged) remuneration. Nowadays it is debatable whether “genuine hospitality” can be subject to remuneration (Vijver, 1989, Pohl, 1999). In fact, the hospitality industry is the only industry branch in which such a discrepancy in two value systems exists within the service product itself. In not-for-profit institutions we see more often discrepancies in value systems, e.g. “control and penalizing” vs. “help and assistance” (police, social welfare, etc.), or “educate and develop” vs. “number of graduates / research publications within time limits” (universities).

What is meant by hospitality? In Western languages, hospitality is a concept used to indicate several kinds of situations, states of mind, and ways of conduct, thus covered by several domains of meaning e.g. ethics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, business and management, etc. In general, hospitality is associated with a more or less ritualistic encounter, a social event in which two parties are involved, manifesting itself in an observable way. In fact, hospitality can even be considered as a “value” in itself.

So hospitality is a concept which is difficult to define unequivocally. Every more or less exactly attempted definition will exclude aspects from other points of view. As for the relevance of the definition it is generally accepted in social sciences, that a definition is needed for inter-subjective understanding of the concept. This difficulty in defining social concepts such as “hospitality”, “care”, “(ab)normal behaviour”, “service” etc. is the reason why some scholars refuse to handle definitions as operational instruments in research and theory building. They assert that the members of a society or culture, in their language, give meaning to a concept and they seldom do so in an unequivocal way. (Elias, 1991). From this point of view it is a task of social research to investigate what meanings are given to a concept under study by the users of that concept themselves, namely the group or culture in which the concept is used.

In the academic world these concepts are often nicknamed as “container concepts”: from an operational point of view, they are difficult to define, and seem to be too “vague” and “multi-interpretable” for a satisfying (operational) definition. They are called container concepts, because essential characteristics, observable, concrete features, and different levels of abstraction and viewpoints can be “thrown” into this container ad libitum. Everybody “feels” what it entails, but everybody gives a different definition or description.

Hospitality is such a concept: without features and associations that describe a “feeling” or “atmosphere” it cannot be captured in any workable operational definition, so researchers exhaust themselves in summoning up features and attributes they observe in situations understood as hospitality situations, in much the same way the biological features of man or the appearances and growth specifications of a tree can be listed.

In many cases, a good method to capture a concept’s essentials is etymological analysis. Many abstract concepts have a non-operational, not directly measurable meaning, which has developed from a less complex or less abstract concept that existed in language long ago in history. Often it gives the core of the concept’s meaning (but not always because etymological development may also have lead the meaning away from its original source). Let us try to do this with “hospitality”, “Gastfreundlichkeit” (German) and “gastvrijheid” (Dutch).

Hospitality stems from the Latin word “hostis”, originally meaning stranger (both enemy and guest). In its development a separate word for “host” originated from “hostis” and “potis”: “hosti-potis”: “stranger – lord” or host, later also used for guest: hosti-potis > hospes).

The German word “guest” and its siblings in several German-family tongues seems to be related to the Roman “host” since its Indo-European, pre-historical times. The Dutch “gastvrijheid” means literally “guest freedom”, and is also the literal translation of “hospitality”. We can imagine that in ancient times and the Middle Ages strangers were assigned their place by the host community, because this community didn’t know about the norms, rules (and often intentions!) the stranger was obeying to, and vice versa. So for their own protection and the protection of the stranger, the stranger was continuously under supervision and/or company. It seems obvious, that “gastvrijheid” refers to giving the guest as much freedom as possible, which also means that you as a host are always available, not to supervise or to control, but to see that the guest feels easy ands comfortable amidst customs, habits, ways of communication etc. (s)he is not familiar with. The German “Gastfreundlichkeit” is easy to interpret: “Freundlichkeit” simply means “friendliness”, and “Gast” “guest”.

We can conclude that “hospitality” originally means the friendly reception of strangers. It says nothing about remuneration, although many cultures consider remuneration to be contrary to the social rules and rites around hospitality as they developed in the history of a culture. In ceremonial situations the guest is supposed to bring with him (precious) gifts for the host, and vice versa, but these are not intended as remuneration.

It should be added that in our definition we purposely don’t rely on definitions that explicitly mention the offering of shelter, lodging and/or food, such as those mentioned by Lashley and Morrison: “Hospitality is a contemporaneous human exchange, which is voluntarily entered into and designed to enhance the mutual wellbeing of the parties concerned through the provision of accommodation, and/or food, and/or drink (Lashley and Morrison (eds.) 2000: 142). In the paper contributing to their book, another definition is: “The basic function of hospitality is to establish a relationship or to promote exchange of goods and services, both material and symbolic, between […] hosts and […] guests. One of the principal functions of hospitality is to consolidate the recognition that hosts and guests share the same moral universe or […] to enable the construction of a moral universe to which both host and guest belong” (Selwyn, 2000). Selwyn is less “operational” in stressing the “function” and “sharing a moral universe” as an essential feature of hospitality, and thus comes closer to a “verstehende” description (however, one may wonder if social phenomena can have functions, because a function pre-supposes that social unities such as societies, groups, tribes, etc. maintain and develop the same way as organisms do, which is debatable).

An important limitation of operational definitions is that they try to externalise an internal concept. What we see when we observe the conditions and features described in the definition, is the top of the iceberg. The main part of the iceberg remains under water, remains in the host’s and guest’s minds. This is the hospitality as described by Christine Pohl in “Making Room” (Pohl, 1999), who cites John Calvin and Erasmus, when they concluded that genuine hospitality doesn’t exist anymore in Western countries, as it is replaced more and more by inns (!), of which the only intention seemed to make profit.
What remains under water? All elements of the definition that refer to what we call “social reality”: allowances, agreements, acknowledgements, and all what can be referred to as moral aspects. These are not directly observable in overt conduct. All three participants in the process: host, guest and observer must be able to understand the meaning of behaviour patterns before they can be “labelled” as “hospitality”, there is no other way to describe a concept such as this.

Consulted literature:
Braithwaite R.W. (2003): Five Meals In The Forties: Perspectives On Hospitality Under Extreme Circumstances; Tourism Review International, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 61-66(6)
Vijver, H (1998): “Ethiek van de gastvrijheid” (“Ethics of Hospitality”), Van Gorcum.
Pohl (1999): Making Room – Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Cy, Grand Rapids / Cambridge
Elias, N.(1991): Symbol Theory; Sage, London.
Lashley, C. and A. Morrison (eds.) (2000): “In search of Hospitality”, Butterworth / Heinemann: e.g. 13
Selwyn, T. 2000): An Anthropology of Hospitality, in: Lashley, C. and A. Morrison (eds.) (2000): “In Search of Hospitality”, Butterworth / Heinemann