The Importance of Inhospitality

Abstract

In order to better understand what is hospitality, we need a much deeper understanding of what is inhospitality? In the late 1990s in the United Kingdom, hospitality researchers came together to discuss and debate ‘hospitality… [as] worthy of serious academic study and [which] could potentially inform both industrial practice and academic endeavour.[1]’ The discussion had important implications for the advancement of knowledge in the hospitality subject, whether for hospitality management or simply the study of hospitality, and its positioning within the academic sphere, as well as for recognition of the quality of hospitality higher education programmes. The debates were very influential in the development of the study of hospitality. Today, a similar discussion and debate is required regarding what is inhospitality in order to inform not only the hospitality subject and industrial practice but also to contribute to social advancement.