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- Volume 8, Issue 2, 2018
Hospitality & Society - Volume 8, Issue 2, 2018
Volume 8, Issue 2, 2018
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Narratives of health and hospitality: Strathpeffer Spa c. 1866–c. 1949
More LessAbstractThis article examines the history of Strathpeffer Spa (the United Kingdom’s most northerly spa) between c. 1860 and c. 1949 using a range of printed primary and archive sources. Drawing upon Hansen’s work in business history it demonstrates the value of a cultural and narrative approach as a means of understanding the development of a distinctive hospitality-based community. Strathpeffer Spa was founded for the business of health, with the entire village dependent upon the spa and engaged in the provision of hospitality for those who came to ‘take the waters’. From c. 1866 a powerful ‘health narrative’ dominated the village community. At the heart of this was an emphasis on Strathpeffer as a destination devoted to the requirements of ‘health seekers’ and ‘invalids’, and where meeting the needs of this particular clientele was paramount. Hospitality at Strathpeffer was, thus, medicalized into a prolonged health-giving experience, a narrative that was created and sustained by key members of the community, and which became deeply embedded in the fabric and purpose of the village. Although the emphasis on this ‘health narrative’ proved initially to be successful, in the longer term it became a contributing factor in Strathpeffer Spa’s declining fortunes. The value of a narrative approach for understanding the sustainability of hospitality-based communities is discussed.
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Hospitality in wild places
Authors: Peter Varley, Jelena Farkic and Sandro CarnicelliAbstractWe contribute to the hospitality work research agenda by reconsidering the role of outdoor adventure guides as agents of hospitality, set against a conceptual backdrop of deepening ontological insecurity in industrialized societies. We argue that the concepts of dwelling, communitas and hygge have much to offer in the delivery of outdoor hospitality in general, and in outdoor adventure tourism scenarios in particular. Although originating from the Danes and their ideas of ‘cosy indoor life’, the concept of hygge has recently gained global attention in the debates around creating comfortable atmospheres at home, and in fostering people’s emotional well-being on holiday. Moving the concept along, we suggest the stimulation of hygge in the outdoors, along with provision of the space to dwell and the stage management of the communal effervescence of communitas as part of the crucial skill set for the outdoor guide. We opine that such conceptualization can greatly inform our understanding of both the role of the outdoor guide and of the dynamics of deliverable hospitable experience more generally.
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Managing innovation in the hospitality micro firm: A framework for sensing, seizing and reconfiguring dynamic capabilities
Authors: Felicity Kelliher, Arthur Kearney and Denis HarringtonAbstractHospitality micro firms, those with fewer than ten employees, represent the vast majority of hospitality providers worldwide. Innovation is regularly cited as a core capability in sustaining micro firm success; however, little is known about how dynamic innovation capability is developed and honed in the hospitality micro firm environment. This discussion paper advocates taking a theoretical perspective on hospitality micro firm managerial capability for innovation based on dynamic capabilities. Specifically, the article argues the benefits of a framework based on sensing, seizing and reconfiguring dynamic capabilities as a means of building an innovation culture within the micro firm. The discussion contributes to the academic literature in providing a new theoretical perspective on an emerging research area – hospitality micro firm innovation capabilities. The contextual nature of the framework developed offers both researchers and practitioners a management framework to improve innovation management in the hospitality micro firm setting.
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Conference Review
More LessAbstract‘Greetings from Palma’, 7th Critical Tourism Studies Conference, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 25–29 June 2017
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Book Review Essay
More LessAbstractTourism in the Arab World: An Industry Perspective, Hamed Almuhrzi, Hafidh Alriyami and Noel Scott (eds) (2017) Bristol: Channel View, 304 pp., ISBN: 978-1-84541-614-0, p/bk, £109.95
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Reviews
Authors: Erdogan Koc and Yara EvansAbstractSpecial Interest Tourism: Concepts, Contexts and Cases, Sheela Agarwal, Graham Busby and Rong Huang (eds) (2018) Wallingford, Oxford: CABI, 233 pp., ISBN: 9781780645667, p/bk, £39.99
Migration, Ethics and Power: Spaces of Hospitality, Ethics and Power, Dan Bulley (2017) London: Sage, 188 pp., ISBN: 9781473985032, p/bk, £31
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