Passionately yours: Managing emotional and spatial boundaries in lifestyle-based hospitality businesses

Abstract

This article examines the boundary work done by self-employed men and women in rural areas, whose goal is to accomplish their lifestyle aspirations. Their business model is to host people, specifically dog owners, at their homes, offering a space to spend some leisure time and train in dog sports in a rural setting. For the host-entrepreneurs, the work is also their lifestyle and, therefore, the conventional boundaries between professional and personal life are constantly blurred. The article suggests that the emotionally demanding work of crossing the boundaries between private and public is motivated by their passion for their lifestyle-a desired attribute in the new economy. Although they appear to be ideal workers as per the rules of the new economy, the business and lifestyle depend on their infinite passion.

The career constructions of hospitality students: A rocky road

“…At an individual level, a significant finding was that the calling or passion which led students to choose a hospitality degree was only seen in some students, despite the certainty expressed by all students that a passion for hospitality was essential for a hospitality career. Although passion is linked with positive career-adaptive behaviours (Xie et al 2016), it can dissipate and graduates will leave the hospitality sector (Richardson and Butler 2012), possibly as a result of the overwork that Ikonen (2017) suggests may occur when passion and work merge. Intersections of ethnicity and class were visible in career constructions at micro levels, due to the cultural and social classbased positioning of 'hospitality' as an inferior career choice for some South East Asian participants.…”

Lifestyle Entrepreneurship: Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

“…The second category is comprised of activity-driven lifestyle entrepreneurs (ALE's) -those who find fulfilment and derive pleasure and achievement from particular activities central to their ventures' operations (Fillis, 2004;Hemme et al, 2017;Jones et al, 2017). ALE's create ventures to work in agriculture or with animals (Cederholm and Åkerström, 2016;Ikonen, 2017;Notzke, 2019;Sigurðardóttir, 2018;Velardi et al, 2021), to pursue adventure such as through hunting and fishing (McGehee and Kim, 2004;Milanesi, 2018) or mountain guide services (de la Barre, 2013), and to engage in sports ranging from skiing and snowmobiling (Lundberg and Fredman, 2012), to sled-dog touring (Schilar and Keskitalo, 2018) and surfing (Wallis et al, 2020). The last category is…”

“…The second category is comprised of activity‐driven lifestyle entrepreneurs (ALE's) – those who find fulfilment and derive pleasure and achievement from particular activities central to their ventures' operations (Fillis, 2004; Hemme et al, 2017; Jones et al, 2017). ALE's create ventures to work in agriculture or with animals (Cederholm and Åkerström, 2016; Ikonen, 2017; Notzke, 2019; Sigurðardóttir, 2018; Velardi et al, 2021), to pursue adventure such as through hunting and fishing (McGehee and Kim, 2004; Milanesi, 2018) or mountain guide services (de la Barre, 2013), and to engage in sports ranging from skiing (Carson et al, 2018) and snowmobiling (Lundberg and Fredman, 2012), to sled‐dog touring (Schilar and Keskitalo, 2018) and surfing (Wallis et al, 2020). The last category is comprised of those who start ventures to live in a particular location by turning characteristics of that location into a central aspect of their ventures' product and service offerings, such as small hotels (Lashley and Rowson, 2010), guest houses (Crick, 2011; Crick et al, 2018), homesteads and ecolodges (Bressan and Pedrini, 2020), bed‐and‐breakfast (Cederholm and Hultman, 2010; Griggio and Oxenswärdh, 2021) and other tourist related businesses.…”

“…The strongest motivator for activity‐driven lifestyle entrepreneurship (ALE) is love or passion for specific activities that lead them to turn those activities into a business (Carson and Carson, 2018; Guercini and Cova, 2018; Hemme et al, 2017; Ikonen, 2017). ALE activities, such as fitness/ sport or recreational activities, allow individuals to earn a living while participating in their favourite activity (Hoyte, 2019; Jones et al, 2017).…”

Hospitality & Society: Critical reflections on the theorizing of hospitality

“…Home hosting for commercial or non-commercial purposes is the subject of several papers and often associated with host lifestyles. One contribution to the lifestyle discussions is that of Ikonen (2017) who explores commercial home hosts and specifically ones targeting dog owners as potential guests seeking both leisure time and dog sports in a rural setting. The study focuses upon boundary work by the host, negotiating public and private domains, perceived to be emotionally demanding and motivated by lifestyle passion, which is viewed as a desirable attribute in the new economy.…”