Overview

This book aims to both reflect and open up a number of debates between academics working in the field of hospitality management and academics from the wider social sciences. As Airey and Tribe show in Chapter 15, hospitality management is a relatively new academic discipline that has been largely concerned with the hospitality industry. In many ways hospitality has been used as a term to describe activities that were called hotel and catering in earlier times. The study of hospitality presents avenues of enquiry that the more prosaic title of hotel and catering tends to discourage yet which are essential for understanding host and guest relationships. When the possibilities are explored, hospitality and hospitableness can be studies in private and in wider social settings.

There have been a number of recent books dealing with food and social aspects of eating. For example, the work of Visser (1991), Mennel, et al. (1992), Wood, (1995), Beardsworth and Keil (1997) all address aspects of eating and meals. With few exceptions, these texts rarely touch on or mention hospitality and relationships between guests and host through a study of mutual obligations and the practice of hospitableness. Telfer s work (1996) and Heal s (1990) exploration of hospitality in early middle England are notable in providing analysis that can inform future study.

Current interest in defining hospitality as an academic subject outlined in this book stems from a meeting held in Nottingham in April 1997. The meeting aimed to explore subjects of common interest amongst...