Hospitableness: the new service metaphor? Developing an instrument for measuring hosting

Abstract

Over the last couple of decades the word hospitality has emerged from the shadow of being used to describe a cluster of commercial activities providing accommodation, food and drink experiences to guests for a fee. Hospitality describes a ubiquitous aspect of human behaviour. The need to protect and honour visitors has a tradition as long as human society and is practiced around the globe. The study of hospitality reveals that societies do have changing levels of obligation to be hospitable, and that many of the more advanced contemporary societies no longer practice the requirement to be hospitable with the same intensity that perhaps they once did. That said, philosophers and others suggest that in any given social context, there are differences amongst individuals in the commitment to being hospitable for the pleasure it gives them personally. They are not motivated by ulterior motives, personal gain, or the threat of punishment. Guests are unconditionally welcomed by hosts driven by altruistic motives. Whilst it has been possible to describe the behaviour of hospitable individuals, there has not been until now an instrument to measure the strength of genuine hospitality in individuals. This paper describes the development of a suite of questions designed to measure these qualities in individuals. This paper describes the development of the instrument and argues for the application of the instrument in wider array of tourist and other contexts than are described here.

Keywords: host, guest, hosting, researching hospitableness