Revitalise: Empowering inspired hospitality

Hos­pit­al­ity needs to be revered and revital­ised if travel & tour­ism is to become a con­struct­ive and trans­form­at­ive force for good, accord­ing to K Michael Haywood. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Hos­pit­al­ity demon­strates trans­form­at­ive power when people embrace the oth­er and con­trib­ute to the over­all well-being of com­munit­ies, cit­izens, and customers. 

By provid­ing a sense of affil­i­ation that builds trust and feel­ings of import­ance, hos­pit­al­ity is the essen­tial build­ing block for repeat busi­ness. It determ­ines the long-term sur­viv­al of all communities-as-destinations.

Today, how­ever, des­tin­a­tions face mount­ing chal­lenges in their quest to revital­ise as, post-pan­dem­ic, they struggle to turn the tide by achiev­ing healthy growth, and cir­cum­vent­ing the inev­it­able hos­pit­al­ity sys­tems gaps and hid­den stressors of emo­tion­al labour that have been allowed to fester.

As a con­tri­bu­tion to resolv­ing these and related prob­lems, Des­tin­a­tions Inter­na­tion­al is mount­ing a cam­paign in sup­port of com­munity shared value. From a stra­tegic point of view, how­ever, shared value has to extend far bey­ond the belief that “… our loc­al res­id­ents are our ulti­mate cus­tom­ers”. 

Com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions must con­sider the interests of entire com­munit­ies, their cit­izens and cus­tom­ers, all of whom want and deserve to be treated with respect. Obvi­ously every­one needs to share tourism’s bene­fits, but far more needs to be done to cla­ri­fy what out­comes are desir­able and of import­ance to indi­vidu­al stakeholders. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” Insights by K Michael Haywood

For­tu­nately, by reclaim­ing our per­son­al power, inde­pend­ent thought, and action, we can encour­age our indi­vidu­al com­munit­ies and organ­isa­tions to flesh out the rhet­or­ic and determ­ine how best to hon­our and achieve com­munity shared value; value that ori­gin­ates from the notion that hos­pit­al­ity rep­res­ents the vital found­a­tion­al prin­ciple and ingredient.

To do so we need to work more closely with all our tour­ism-related enter­prises, DMOs, indi­vidu­al neigh­bour­hoods, and tour­ism clusters to form high-impact coali­tions; coali­tions that, as exem­pli­fied in Europe, demon­strate DMO­cracy instru­ment­al in help­ing their com­munit­ies revital­ise and serve as guar­ant­ors of prin­cipled hospitality.

Hos­pit­al­ity in ser­vice for oth­ers, not simply pro­vi­sion of ser­vice to oth­ers. Ser­vice that stems from respons­ible, respons­ive approaches to plan­ning and policy-mak­ing that serves to change and improve the game. 

What is ‘vital’?

For the most part, trav­el­lers are extremely select­ive. Wheth­er trav­el­ling for pleas­ure or on busi­ness, they prefer to vis­it only those com­munit­ies that appeal, serve their needs, and go out of their way to wel­come. The genu­ine­ness of hos­pit­al­ity on offer, how­ever, is totally depend­ent on the will­ing­ness and desire of loc­al pop­u­la­tions, entre­pren­eurs, and enter­prises to engage with those from away in mean­ing­ful and delight­ful ways. 

At its most basic, hos­pit­al­ity oper­ates as an essen­tial means toward this end. But it can­not be a cyn­ic­al exer­cise in “how to win friends and influ­ence people”. Rather, genu­ine hos­pit­al­ity has to awaken the senses and provide exper­i­ences that lift spir­its and touch hearts. 

At its best, hos­pit­al­ity is a com­plex embod­i­ment of life’s pleas­ures: The desire to gath­er in friendly, safe, and com­fort­able places. The desire to exper­i­ence camarader­ie and true affec­tion. The desire to provide nour­ish­ment, accom­mod­a­tion, sig­na­ture com­forts, and amen­it­ies. With com­mit­ments to gen­er­os­ity and good­will, polite­ness and grace, hospitality’s goal is a richly elab­or­ated life; a nur­tur­ing of being, beauty, restraint, joy, and fondness.

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
“Hotels and resorts and oth­er accommodation”

While deeply woven into a tapestry of place and cul­tures, fam­ily and polit­ic­al life, hos­pit­al­ity and kind­ness have the power to enhance everyone’s well-being; a vital require­ment that can trans­form organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies. By stir­ring our col­lect­ive ima­gin­a­tions and gen­er­at­ing beha­viours that cel­eb­rate life and tra­di­tions, hos­pit­al­ity serves to per­son­al­ise, even revolu­tion­ise the ordinary.

Hos­pit­al­ity, when truly inspired, how­ever, goes far bey­ond that which is mediocre. It empowers achieve­ment of the extraordin­ary, and can become the essen­tial trans­form­at­ive force asso­ci­ated with mag­ni­fi­cence, enhan­cing the ‘well­th’ and well-being of all. 

Such mag­nan­im­ity, though, depends on our cul­tur­al range; our will­ing­ness to deal with vis­it­ors and our employ­ees, with all their idio­syn­crasies. Sim­il­arly, it depends on how well we, as indi­vidu­als and com­munit­ies, suc­ceed at self-mon­it­or­ing our beha­viours towards oth­ers. Com­munit­ies can­not legis­late host/visitor behaviours. 

Nev­er­the­less, as we set forth to revital­ise our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions, we have no choice. We must make every effort to val­id­ate decency, kind­ness, and ten­der­ness, and cre­ate net­works of goodwill. 

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
“Com­munity-based tourism”

If we are to under­stand the basics of being emo­tion­ally agile (adjust­ing beha­viours to messy situ­ations), as well as to edu­cate and design the what, the how and the to whom hos­pit­al­ity is offered — espe­cially in con­sid­er­a­tion of “why” it is offered — we need to be extremely vigilant.

By doing so, we can cre­ate organ­isa­tions that people enjoy work­ing for. This requires that we fully engage our employ­ees; com­mu­nic­ate with and har­ness their emo­tion­al ener­gies; and, design bet­ter jobs. 

It is essen­tial, moreover, that we con­nect employ­ees to organ­isa­tion­al pur­pose and provide them with spe­cif­ic goals, plus the free­dom to fig­ure out how to reach this pur­pose, espe­cially in rela­tion to improv­ing indi­vidu­al vis­it­or exper­i­ences.

Emphas­is has to be put on mak­ing the var­ied jobs asso­ci­ated with hos­pit­al­ity more mean­ing­ful, and employ­ee exper­i­ence more reward­ing. Cul­tur­al flu­ency has to be encour­aged. It can be achieved by help­ing people deal with unavoid­able cul­tur­al faux pas through edu­ca­tion and training.

Hospitable people, places, planet 

As more com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions and their DMOs set their sights on ‘com­munity shared value’ and the trans­form­at­ive jour­ney toward the hos­pit­able mani­fest­a­tions of mag­ni­fi­cence, care must be exer­cised. As pro­posed, inspired hos­pit­al­ity rep­res­ents one of the community’s most vital stra­tegic resources…the one stra­tegic resource deemed “valu­able, rare, dif­fi­cult to imit­ate, and non-substitutable”. 

To pro­tect and devel­op hos­pit­al­ity as a stra­tegic resource, ima­gine act­ing on the belief that our employ­ees and our com­munity come first, not just our vis­it­ors or cus­tom­ers. As Danny Mey­er explains, such a con­vic­tion rep­res­ents the found­a­tion­al and for­mid­able art of hos­pit­al­ity so dif­fer­ent from the typ­ic­al ser­vice men­tal­it­ies that hold sway, such as “the cus­tom­er is always right”. 

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
“HR and human cap­it­al development”

Hos­pit­al­ity has to come from the heart for it to make “people” (vis­it­ors and cit­izens) feel spe­cial and at home. Hos­pit­al­ity, delivered for oth­ers, is what con­trib­utes the most to tourism’s suc­cess. It will deliv­er untold bene­fits forever, so long as it is truly prin­cipled and aligned with the res­tor­a­tion of value desired by all stakeholders. 

Now, if hos­pit­al­ity comes from the heart, where lies the heart? It has been said that “home is where the heart is”. Put anoth­er way, it is depend­ent entirely on people recog­nising their com­munit­ies as being a com­fort­able sense of place, rather than an exist­en­tial struggle with or with­in it. 

Tourism’s stra­tegic resource has always been con­sidered to be com­munity or ‘place’. It becomes vital­ised when the power of hos­pit­al­ity per­vades it; when people care about their com­munity and feel oblig­ated to rep­res­ent it at its best, par­tic­u­larly in encoun­ters with vis­it­ors, as all cit­izens and organ­isa­tions have a mean­ing­ful stake in the outcomes.

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
“Sus­tain­able tour­ism and regen­er­at­ive tourism”

At the level of ‘plan­et’, the most inim­it­able of tourism’s stra­tegic resources, today’s focus has to be on cli­mate change and tourism’s efforts to address it and to become and remain sus­tain­able. If our plan­et­ary home is to be a sin­gu­lar pri­or­ity, then we must treat it with even great­er respect and hospitality. 

While we must be all-con­sumed with ensur­ing ‘people’, ‘place’, and ‘plan­et’ are and remain sus­tain­able, we can­not ignore how depend­ent many com­munit­ies and neigh­bour­hoods, organ­isa­tions and res­id­ents are on tour­ism. Their eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, social, and nature-based sus­tain­ab­il­ity can suf­fer immensely if the travel & tour­ism industry slides into decline. This is why hos­pit­al­ity, as a found­a­tion­al and prin­ciples concept, has to be inspired and revered. Its revital­isa­tion is essen­tial if tour­ism is to become and truly remain a con­struct­ive and trans­form­at­ive force for good.

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Fea­tured image (top of post): Revital­ise: Empower­ing inspired hos­pit­al­ity. Refresh­ing drink by Photo Mix (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.