Acceptance brings hope: a long overdue acknowledgement of commercial hospitality’s contribution to history

Citation

O’Gorman, K. and Harvey, C. (2013), "Acceptance brings hope: a long overdue acknowledgement of commercial hospitality’s contribution to history", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 25 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2013.04125baa.001

Acceptance brings hope: a long overdue acknowledgement of commercial hospitality’s contribution to history

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 25, Issue 2

Commercial hospitality is a phenomenon that, if better understood will serve to strengthen our understanding of the development of civilisation as a whole. As editors it is our duty to endorse such a strong message and its apparent over-statement is only implicit due to a lamentable dearth of research into the history of commercial hospitality and its contribution to society.

This special issue focuses on the history of the commercial hospitality industry in relation to its philosophical, anthropological, sociological and economic underpinnings. Commercial hospitality has developed in parallel with civilised society. Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 1790 B.C.) established a code of practice that protected travellers and began to regulate the commercial hospitality industry (O’Gorman, 2010). Although, as yet, no archaeological evidence of commercial hostels and taverns in ancient Mesopotamia has been identified, there is a large diorite stela in the Louvre Museum containing inscriptions commonly known as the Code of Hammurabi. According to O’Gorman (2009), the original purpose of the stela is somewhat enigmatic; however, within the inscription, there are laws governing commercial hospitality from at least 1800 BC. Hostels and inns in Mesopotamia were in the business of supplying drinks, women and accommodation for strangers.

These papers included in this special issue continue to develop our understanding of commercial hospitality in more contemporary society and cover a wide geographical area. The first group explore the evolution of commercial dining. Symons illustrates how the French restaurants proposition is deeply intermeshed with the welcoming of strangers for commercial gain. Mac Con Iomaire explores the move towards commercial dining in Ireland, offering a legislative perspective on the development of restaurants. Where Linderman finds that charitable hospitality offerings by royalty in South India formed the foundations for commercial development.

The second group explores how commercial hospitality has contributed to the economic development of the state. O’Mahony and Clark illustrate how commercial hospitality in Australia supported the economy as it grew around the burgeoning gold mining industry. Bryce, O’Gorman, and Baxter convincingly demonstrate how caravanserai were the building blocks for commercial centres in Safavid Iran (c. 1600) and Maclaren, Young, and Lochrie show the centrality of taverns and inns to the Southern frontier, these were key markers for settlement development during 1800s. Finally, Bremner presents a comprehensive example of commercial hospitality being developed in New Zealand that extended the product from accommodation to landscaping the environment to attract specific market segments.

The articles in this special issue use a variety of historical methods from archival material, historical case study, legal sources, and material culture. Previously, when engaging in historical research, too often hospitality academics have resorted to secondary or tertiary sources and lacked the language ability to read and translate the original texts that are required, whereas many languages including Arabic, Farsi, Tamil and Mori have been used here.

The articles themselves highlight that commercial hospitality has always been seen as a source of revenue both for the state and for individuals. The state depended on information gathering from hospitality networks, with guests seen as a means of news exchange. However, these networks born out of hospitality were also subverted for espionage and used for strategic gain. Outstanding establishments within the commercial hospitality sphere have always been considered an enhancement to the standing of the city and a reliable source of revenue; similarly, hospitality professionals commanded high reputations within society. However, crossing thresholds of commercial hospitality guaranteed and provided physical protection, sanctuary and security.

A commercial hospitality sector has always existed to some extent, distinct and separate from domestic and civic hospitality. Large-scale provision of food, beverage and accommodation was common, the sector supported and attracted travellers and was necessary and integral for business and served the needs of merchants. Commercial hospitality establishments became clustered within cities, in some cases even helping to form the cities themselves. In other words, the supply of commercial hospitality was already subject to the demand of market forces focused on urban centres to which the merchants were attracted. Commercial hospitality existed for those who did not have an extensive network of private hospitality or were either insufficiently privileged to receive the hospitality of the state or in such an impoverished personal situation that they required it. The commercial provision was not homogeneous, and stratified levels of provision offered different levels of service. Indeed, commercial hospitality had always to be paid for and more money bought a better provision and quality of service. Establishments quickly gained reputations through the quality of their staff and standard of service provided, and equally through the character and behaviour of their clientele. Finally, one constant and unremitting aspect of the commercial industry and those employed within it was the increasing legal control they were subject to.

Now, as hospitality academics, researchers, students and practitioners we should be immensely proud of the rich and incredibly diverse heritage our industry has. The emergence of a service industry following the Industrial Revolution brought us the ability to simultaneously package and disassemble the service product for both academic scrutiny and commercial exploitation. However, what we also know is that the service-based product did not have its genesis within the last 200 years; institutional forms that provide hospitality have existed forever, known by an assortment of different names in the past, but often highly commercialized. The papers in this issue simply highlight that hospitality and its relatives attend to both commercial sensibilities and social structures. For example, gastronomy and culinary innovation has been a seemingly scientific endeavour that has explicit commercial application (Cousins et al., 2010), in the same way in which trends in HRM are directed towards a human element yet they are governed by commercial objectives (Davidson et al., 2011). The papers in this issue can be seen to add depth to such previous work that develops the commercial hospitality narrative as one that is a longstanding bedfellow of other institutional forms of hospitality. Examples where these papers add context and texture can be found in areas such as hospitality marketing research (Yoo et al., 2011), service quality in the hotel industry (Crick and Spencer, 2011) and strategic management and strategic thinking in the industry (Harrington and Ottenbacher, 2011). This work also illustrates the benefits of examining history, in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past and learn for the future. Hospitality research should focus on deepening understanding of the industry; learning from the past will continue to help to inform the future both theoretically and practically.

Kevin O’Gorman, Charles HarveyGuest Editors