Hospitality & Society - Volume 12, Issue 1, 2022

The private club literature is disparate and rarely draws comparisons between or among club cultures. In this article, club culture in New York and London are compared. Specifically, the history of private clubs in London and New York is explored, focusing on the latter part of the nineteenth century. Historical documents are reviewed in an attempt to establish the club culture in the respective cities, how clubs were viewed within their communities, and similarities that existed between ‘Club Land’ in London and similar club clusters in New York. While the press coverage in the respective cities seems to have been equally admiring of clubs and ‘clubmen’, some differences are identified between the respective club cultures and club identities, particularly with respect to the inclusivity of the clubs, and the expectations for the participation of women and married men in club life.

The aim of the study is to look at cosmopolitan cities searching for moments of hospitality that take place in cosmopolitan spaces. These moments are understood as the time when acts eliminate socially built barriers and anonymity by making people closer to the establishment of relationships that may result in effective bonds (temporary or long-lasting). Photoethnography was used; 421 photographic records were taken in the five largest Brazilian cities (in economic terms): São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasíliaand Curitiba. In total, 130 photos were selected for analysis; twenty of them were chosen to represent the four created categories, representing moments of hospitality in cosmopolitan cities: human, architectonic, environmental and hostility. It is noticeable that, although hospitality is a relationship set among two or more individuals, it does not become effective in the absence of adjacent factors, such as architecture and/or the environment. This outcome also reinforces the thin line between hospitality and hostility, to the extent that the perception of hospitality is dependent on hostility. Thus, we expect to contribute to the reasoning about hospitality in contemporary society, which is marked by exclusion, aggressiveness, hostility and, even, moments of inhospitality.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected millions directly (by getting infected) or indirectly (by the disease’s economic, social and political repercussions). These effects are multiplied for the vulnerable groups. This article focuses on the situation of immigrants and the inhospitableness shown to them when they need hospitality the most. Our theoretical background for hospitality is based on Baumanian thought and his inspirations from Kant, Levinas and Derrida. While the Baumanian perspective of ‘hospitality as a consumption practice’ is key to evaluating the hospitality denied to ‘vulnerable people’ today, it falls short of elaborating the stigmatizing and exclusionary xenophobic reactions during this pandemic. From this context, this study focuses on evaluating the xenophobic acts experienced in times of COVID-19 from the perspective of Baumanian hospitality and aims to show that consumption practices are not the only impediment to achieving hospitality.

In Samoa, customarily most tourism accommodation is locally owned and operated. Against a backdrop of increasingly foreign-owned large hotels and resorts, local families have built low-cost beach fale accommodation (consisting of thatched beach huts) in coastal locations. These beach fale, traditionally frequented by the backpacker market, are proving increasingly popular with visiting families from overseas. A major attraction at these beach fale is the local food experience. Yet, only a superficial understanding exists of the tourists’ perspective on food preferences and beach fale experiences, especially for families and their children. There have been several development research studies on fale operations but none on the growing international family tourism market. This article provides insights into the neglected family perspectives of social hospitality experiences at Samoan beach fale accommodation and to elicit the key elements of the emerging slow hospitality concept. This exploratory study is based on ten semi-structured whole-family group interviews conducted with New Zealand and Australian families (30 parents, grandparents and children [aged 7–17]). The findings support a trend towards families seeking more authentic, immersive and socially interactive experiences on holiday that are more akin to the local way of life or Fa‘asamoa. It emerged that beach fale tourism provides culturally, culinary, socially and sensually richer experiences as part of slow hospitality offerings for families. This study contributes to broader academic debates about whole-family perspectives on holiday, slow hospitality, beach fale accommodation, seaside or thalasso tourism and understandings of family well-being.