The Significance of Commercial Hospitality

Discuss about the Traditional Skills Models in Hospitality.

The term “Hospitality” refers to the friendly, and warm reception of guests, tourists, or visitors by the host and the involvement of various industries and institutions like hotels, motels, restaurants, clubs, etc. is named as Commercial Hospitality. It is defined as both social as well as commercial activity and engages a great relationship between the guest and the host (Sweeney and Lynch, 2009). The term is very much wider in its context and can be seen as an extension of the three domains which include domestic, social, and commercial. Hospitality in the home is a personal activity which does not involve monetary exchange and any financial transaction. Though commercial hospitality is based on the core themes and values of the domestic hospitality, but is not just an extension of it, rather it can be described as its domain.

The process of commercial hospitality is very common and an ancient approach. The concept gained its importance and the reflection of modern day hospitality has discovered. It includes the use of hotels, restaurants, dines in and beverage outlets as a commercial activity. The literature also demonstrated that the commercial hospitality is vital and a necessary thing to attract tourists and industrialists to different cities as it has been seen as the greatest source of revenue by countries (Bell, 2014). The important point to note in this discussion is that the terminology of commercial hospitality did not come into existence instantly, but it existed several years ago in the form of hospitality in the home. But now the nature and scope of the term have changed, and it has been sub-divided into three major categories named as social, private, and commercial. It is no longer about providing the guest with food, drink, meals, and accommodation by the host, but it involves an impersonal exchange of money for assisting them (O’Connor, 2005). It is the common nature of human beings to have a desire to escape from its daily routine and gain some enjoyable experience. Travelling is considered as the best way of enjoyment and having an escape from the daily routine of life. Different persons have different motives and desires when it comes to traveling. Some desire to have an ultimate time of their life by visiting entertainment places while some others wish to see the cultural heritage and ancient history. It completely depends on a person’s choice according to which they select their desired place to visit. But the choice of destination of an individual is highly influenced by the surroundings of his/her home itself. As an individual generally chooses the place which is quite the opposite in nature of its daily surroundings like if a person is living in an urban area, he/she will choose to visit some quiet places close to nature, or he/she will choose to visit hilly areas or beach places, etc., depending upon his/her likings (Jensen and Svendsen, 2016). The choice of destination also gets affected by various other factors of an individual such as his/her needs, motives, desires, search, emotions, and economic thinking. These all are the major factors that influence the decision making of the tourist to choose a destination for travelling.

The Role of Authenticity and Safety in Tourism

With regard to tourism, the search for authenticity or safety play a major role. Authenticity refers to the idea that is believed to be true or real and which can be worthy of belief (Ellero and Pellegrini, 2014). While travelling, an individual sometimes also demands to search for knowledge in order to understand the real self by exploring the authenticities of the real world. People often go to visit pilgrimages to gain religious knowledge and experience cultural importance by visiting the religious sites. The colorful dress codes based on the themes depicting the culture of a particular country like the advertisements by Mayan women in the city of Guatemala who are wearing the same colorful dresses showing the culture of the country and hand-made woven textiles made by the people in the cities influences the selection of cities by the tourists (Forno and Garibaldi, 2015). These are the things used as an attraction to bring more and more number of tourists in a country and highly influence the choice of people. Safety is the major area of concern of tourists while selecting a place to travel. Feeling of safety and security for a traveler is a must thing and plays the primary role in the choice of accommodation. For a traveler, a wish to visit a place is directly proportional to the safety measures of the place. The most desired and visited places by tourists tends to develop and transform more so that it can attract more people and become a tourist destination. And in its development measures, safety and authenticity come first to ensure that people gain and share positive experiences of them with other which will bring popularity to the place and become a preferred city or country in the choice of tourists (Cheng and Wong, 2015).

Contemporary forms and unconventional trends of commercial accommodation in the tourism sector has increased over the past years. It also involves the trend of sharing economy, which is a kind of a business, in which customers are allowed to use the products and resources of the citizens of the country without having the burden of ownership. The local citizen of the city get into that business, keeping in mind the tourist culture of the country. It provides enjoyable benefits and opportunities to the tourists to get immersed in the domestic culture and explore the place more peacefully. It generates a feeling of homeliness among the tourists and they become more comfortable and feel like a part of the community. Home-swapping in Italy is one of the most convenient example of sharing economy and a number of people are considering it as it comes with various benefits. The phenomenon of home-swapping involves a great deal of risk, but it is also found as a recent trend to share interests with common people (Lekic, Mance and Herceg, 2014). Through these trends, the income and revenue generated by tourism sector also has increased enormously and people are reaping meaningful experiences out of it.

Contemporary Forms and Unconventional Trends in Commercial Accommodation

There is also a need for traditional providers of accommodation to think and redevelop their planning and management strategies in order to compete with the recent trends of accommodation providers. They must think and redesign in a modern way to meet the needs and demands of the tourists and provide them great experiences. For the traditional accommodation providers, working on their marketing and advertising strategies will also help a lot in making them successful (Kowalski, 2013). There is a need to adopt new forms of providing accommodation to the customers by giving them value added benefits and extra facilities. Easy availability of local resources to the tourists by the providers will maintain their interest in the institution. They should also go for techniques of providing entertainment related to the country’s culture, maintaining the socio-culture authenticity and should develop new programs according to the tastes of the customers to make them feel even more special. Event management techniques should be adopted at times of peak season and segmentation and target market is to be planned effectively by accommodation providers (Gore, 2000). These all are some of the guidelines that will help in enhancing the business of traditional accommodation providers and help them to compete in the market place with recent forms of business in the tourism sector. Taking an example of the city of Pondicherry which is called as the heritage coastal city in India. In recent years, the city demonstrated an ultimate growth in the alternative accommodation. When the guests and visitors of alternative accommodation were surveyed then the data collected showed that there are various points of differences that influenced their decision of staying in that accommodation (Baum, 2006). So, it is very important for the traditional accommodation providers to study and understand those differences using factor analysis and make changes according to that.

Therefore, an in-depth understanding of all the topics related to tourism in this study made it clear that the commercial hospitality serves different motives and business than the domestic hospitality. It is the concept that came into existence considering the concept of hospitality in the home, but has different segments and methodologies. Commercial hospitality is the great part of the tourism sector that affiliates and assists the tourists by providing them various benefits according to their demands and needs when they visit unknown places for various reasons. It provides accommodation facilities as well as fulfill several other needs of the tourists to ensure that they gain enjoyable experience by visiting their city or country (Yeung, 2004). Commercial hospitality is of utmost importance to those who do not have any known person who can assist them in the city where they are visiting. And it also helps in enhancing the growth structure and economic development of the country. Thereby, commercial hospitality has been seen as the domain of the hospitality in the home not just an extension of it.

References

Baum, T. (2006). Reflections on the Nature of Skills in the Experience Economy: Challenging Traditional Skills Models in Hospitality. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 13(2), pp.124-135.

Bell, C. (2014). Tourists infiltrating authentic domestic space at Balinese home cooking schools. Tourist Studies, 15(1), pp.86-100.

Cheng, S. and Wong, A. (2015). Professionalism: A contemporary interpretation in hospitality industry context. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 50, pp.122-133.

Ellero, A. and Pellegrini, P. (2014). Are traditional forecasting models suitable for hotels in Italian cities?. Int J Contemp Hospitality Mngt, 26(3), pp.383-400.

Forno, F. and Garibaldi, R. (2015). Sharing Economy in Travel and Tourism: The Case of Home-Swapping in Italy. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 16(2), pp.202-220.

Gore, J. (2000). Book Review: The Handbook of Contemporary Hospitality Management Research.Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2(2), pp.184-186.

Jensen, S. and Svendsen, G. (2016). Social Trust, Safety and the Choice of Tourist Destination.Business and Management Horizons, 4(1), p.1.

Kowalski, Z. (2013). Commercial hospitality as a business model in the independent hotel company.Managerial Economics, (14), p.99.

Lekic, R., Mance, N. and Herceg, D. (2014). Home swapping: A new international trend: Emotions lead to an authentic experience. Turisti poslov, (13), pp.119-127.

O’Connor, D. (2005). Towards a new interpretation of “hospitality”. Int J Contemp Hospitality Mngt, 17(3), pp.267-271.

Sweeney, M. and Lynch, P. (2009). Classifying Commercial Home Hosts Based on their Relationships to the Home. Tourism and Hospitality Planning & Development, 6(2), pp.159-170.

Yeung, S. (2004). Hospitality ethics curriculum: an industry perspective. Int J Contemp Hospitality Mngt, 16(4), pp.253-262.