The Production of Hospitable Space: Commercial Propositions and Consumer Co-Creation in a Bar Operation

Abstract

This paper examines the processes through which a commercial bar is transformed into a hospitable space. Drawing on a study of a venue patronized by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual/transgender consumers, it considers how social and commercial forms of hospitality are mobilized. The paper argues that hospitable space has an ideological, normative and situational dimension. More specifically, it suggests the bar's operation is tied to a set of ideological conceptions, which become the potential basis of association and disassociation among consumers. It examines the forces and processes that shape who participates in the production and consumption of hospitality and how. Finally, it considers the situational, emergent nature of hospitality and the discontinuous production of hospitable space. Rather than focusing exclusively on host-guest or provider-customer relations, which dominates existing work on hospitality, the paper examines how consumers' perceptions, actions and interactions shape the production of hospitality. By doing so the paper offers an alternative approach to understanding queer spaces, bar operation as well as hospitality.

Hospitality, Culture and Regeneration: Urban Decay, Entrepreneurship and the ‘Ruin’ Bars of Budapest

“…The Budapest case also stresses the need to extend the study of hospitality and notions of the "hospitable city" (Bell, 2007a(Bell, , 2007b) through a critical appraisal of how cultural, material and social forces and agencies interact to produce hybrid forms of hospitality. This reflects and adds weight to the growing calls for research on hospitality to consider how broader sets of factors interact to form hospitality spaces and hospitable experiences (Lashley et al, 2007;Lugosi, 2008Lugosi, , 2009. Finally, recognising the central role of particular kinds of hospitality venue in the broader creative ecologies of cities, the paper suggests the need to bring together conceptual tools from hospitality studies with those of urban geography, in order to explore the complexity of the relationship between hospitality and regeneration.…”

“…This blurring of boundaries between hospitality and culture is particularly important here for a number of reasons. Firstly, the view that hospitality can be reduced to the provision of food, drink and shelter has come under increasing criticism (Lashley et al, 2007;Lugosi, 2008Lugosi, , 2009). Food and drink may be provided with minimal or no provider-customer interaction, although the consumer experience is often assured because of extensive interactions between staff and customers and between consumers.…”

“…We argue that hospitality operators can thrive within social and physical urban decay; operators may also exploit fractures and conflicts in the planning and regeneration processes; but hospitality provision may also be co-opted into the regeneration process. Moreover, we also demonstrate how culture, cultural artefacts and activities are part of these relationships and "hospitality propositions" (Lugosi, 2009) of operators.…”

Critical hospitality management research

“…Authors have reconsidered the scope and conceptual depth of hospitality research and have attempted to engage with a broader range of disciplines (cf. Lashley, 2008a;Lashley and Morrison, 2000;Lashley et al, 2007a;Lugosi, 2007aLugosi, , 2007bLugosi, , 2008Lugosi, , 2010Lynch, 2005;Morrison, 2002). Finally, academics have also reconsidered the nature of teaching on hospitality management courses and the need to develop a broader, critical approach to its study (Morrison and O'Mahony, 2003;Morrison and O'Gorman, 2008).…”

From food, work and organization to the study of hospitality and organization: reconsidering the special issue of Human Relations, 61: 7 (2008)

“…Reading respondents' quotes and Driver's analysis highlights how the interactions she considers, using the ambiguous concept of 'food related' activities, are enactments of hospitality, and thus should be interpreted using concepts from hospitality. Drawing on Lashley et al (2007) and Lugosi (2008), hospitality can be thought of as interactive activities involving transactions, either on their own or in combination, of food, drink, intoxicants, including tobacco and legal or illegal drugs, offers of safety and engaging and entertaining social intercourse. As Dikeç (2002) argues, these transactions are gestures of inclusion -attempts to create shared symbolic and physical spaces, in which boundaries may be lowered, albeit temporarily.…”