Last time I gave a talk to A level students, about hospitality I asked them what they thought hospitality was all about. I was given the same answer I often receive by international students and parents. “Something about Hospitals?” You may smile as I did with the naive play on words and the misinterpretation of our industry.
But… let us look closer and forget for a moment the contract catering activities that occur in hospitals which is clearly a part of our industry. Consider that what occurs in hospitality is not that far removed from what occurs in hospitals. In hospitals people are healed and taken care of. Physical health is important but surely not more or less important than spiritual health and well being.
My argument is that in hospitality we also take care of people and sometimes we heal people not only spiritually (think of resorts) but also physically (think of spas or thalassotherapy). I think it is time we take more pride in what we do and how we do it and we go back to the world shouting that we do not represent a mere resource consuming industry but a resource PRODUCING industry. The resources we produce are equally important to the economy of a nation and are called “happiness” and “well being”!
The idea for a blog/column entitled “The Spirit of Philoxenia” emerged out of love for the industry that I was born into and nurtured by. Why not Spirit of Hospitality? It is not because of my Greek heritage that I use the word Philoxenia. It is the meaning of the word that not only encapsulates hospitality as an industry but also the qualities that ought to be part of what we do and we often forget, as we become obsessed and blinded by concepts such as margins and credit crunch.
Philoxenia is that friendship extended to a stranger with no expectations from the part of the host. It is the diversity of both the host and the hosted that makes this industry a great one and it is painful to sometimes see in my travels the paradox of an industry that can only survive through diversity not fully embracing it. In an academic article entitled: London’s Hospitality Workforce: Cultural Diversity a Choice or Necessity? (see: this) we discovered that as an industry we portray an unwelcoming image to young generations considering our industry as a possibility for a future career.
It is time we mobilise and become ambassadors of the true Spirit of Philoxenia because if we fail to capture the imagination of the younger generations we will surely fail in our duty to show the world what a great industry this is.
Philoxenia is that friendship extended to a stranger with no expectations from the part of the host. It is the diversity of both the host and the hosted that makes this industry a great one and it is painful to sometimes see in my travels the paradox of an industry that can only survive through diversity not fully embracing it. In an academic article entitled: London’s Hospitality Workforce: Cultural Diversity a Choice or Necessity? (see: this) we discovered that as an industry we portray an unwelcoming image to young generations considering our industry as a possibility for a future career.
It is time we mobilise and become ambassadors of the true Spirit of Philoxenia because if we fail to capture the imagination of the younger generations we will surely fail in our duty to show the world what a great industry this is.
(First published in: the IoH, Hospitality magazine issue 14, 2009 click here to visit the IoH)
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