Throughout the evolution of my enquiry the term hospitality has developed within my research question. However, I have been advised to focus in on a more precise area of the field or a unifying term that describes the range of spaces I wish to address.
Hospitality spaces are being utilised as the focus for my project, as they are currently overlooked in biophilic design schemes and research. There is a growing volume of work looking to apply biophilic design in workspaces, healthcare spaces, hotel accommodation and even homes. However, hospitality spaces are largely left out. Hospitality has also been hit very hard by pandemic restrictions in the UK and I have a vested interest in the hospitality industry having worked a number of jobs in the sector and enjoy discovering new hospitality spaces in my free time; which drives my passions for this project.
Scalability:
Additionally, focusing on hospitality spaces is a way to make the aims of my project achievable in the scale of my masters project. Therefore, if my work is successful it could be scaled up to other sectors of the hospitality industry. When looking to ‘dream big’ into the future, if successful my work may even be scaled up to vastly larger schemes such as the ‘BiodiverCity’ in the Penang Islands, Malaysia that is currently being developed by BIG; the architectural firm ran by Bjarke Ingles (who I examined in my box of uncertainties project) (GQ, 2021). The BiodiverCity is pioneering in creating a sustainable global destination, connected by autonomous transport, transforming the mudflats of Penang into a greater future for Malaysia (DeZeen, 2020). My work in hospitality spaces could be incorporated into the hospitality spaces in a city scheme similar to this, to help achieve incredible large scale connections to nature.
What Is Hospitality?
Due to the ambiguity surrounding the term hospitality, I aim to eventually remove the term in my research question altogether to one more specific to an area of hospitality. Changing the term hospitality aims to narrowing the focus of my research further and making it truly achievable in the time scale. Consequently, the work below explains my process of working towards narrowing my research field in relation to the term ‘hospitality’.
When exploring the topic of hospitality further, I discovered hospitality and the hospitality industry to host two distinct definitions:
Hospitality:
A contemporaneous human exchange, which is voluntarily entered into, and designed to enhance the mutual wellbeing of the parties concerned through the provision of accommodation, and/or food, and/or drink (Brotherton, 1999).
or
The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers (Oxford, 2021).
Essentially hospitality involves voluntarily entertaining people and hospitality spaces include any space that is utilised to entertain people.
Hospitality Industry:
The hospitality industry is comprised of commercial organisations that specialise in providing accommodation and/or, food, and/or drink, through a voluntary human exchange, which is contemporaneous in nature, and undertaken to enhance the mutual well being of the parties involved (Brotherton and Wood, 2000).
So, the hospital industry essential monetises the service of hospitality. Therefore, the hospitality industry more accurately represents the spaces I wish to target in my project. the hospitality industry includes businesses which can implement applications of nature, that allow a connection to nature to be fostered by numerous individuals who frequent those spaces.
Hospitality Vs Entertaining
Hospitality – involves meeting needs (Lugosi, 2008)
Entertaining – involves giving pleasure (Tefler, 2000)
I discovered that this slight difference between the entertaining and hospitality is a nuanced concept (Tefler, 2000), but may be useful in distinguishing between the precise outcome of the experience in the space that I am trying to achieve.
Brainstorming around why hospitality spaces are utilised:
- largely informal spaces
- social interactive spaces
- business meetings
- work drinks
- meeting friends/family
- personal time – enjoying entertainment/ food or drink
- networking
- social media work – gathering content for posts or ad work promoting spaces
- necessity, in need of food or drink
Different Sectors Of The Hospitality Industry – Which To Focus Upon?
Working from the definitions of the hospitality industry, there is a clear split of 2 key sectors within the hospitality industry, those that look to provide accommodation and those that provide food and drink. Subsequently, I explored biophilic design application in these different settings.
Hotels/ Accommodation Spaces
Hotels are one of the most widely utilised hospitality spaces in Biophilic deigns schemes, specifically in relation to their accommodation spaces (The Resident, 2019). They are seen most frequently with pioneering designs and huge comprehensive schemes re-energisning the spaces. For instance, in Singapore the Park Royal collection hotel at Marina Bay (Panpacific, 2021). Therefore, hotels having large comprehensive schemes require a large budget from the hotel and scale of consultancy operation to conduct the work. Both of which are out of the scale for my MA project. Additionally, due to these spaces already having a biophilic focus, my work will arguably have a lesser effect in these arenas. However, a way in which my work could have a small impact in hotel spaces would be to target struggling hotels with minimal budgets to build connections to nature in these spaces that cannot employ the big schemes. However, it is arguable the profound nature that this change would have, due to the amount of attention hotels are receiving, it will only be a matter of time before the large scale adaptations trickle down into the smaller hotels.
Pubs/ Bars – Restaurants – Pop-ups/ Events
Pubs/bars, restaurants and events spaces have very minimal focus at present in applying biophilic design. When biophilic design is applied in such areas it predominately includes simply adding a few plants into the space, making little impact. At present there are very few companies looking to employ biophilic deign specifically into events, but one company at the forefront of this venture into biophilic events is ‘Planted’. Planted Cities aims to run zero waste, biophilic events and is the first of its kind (Planted, 2021). Protype events for which was held last September and the first real event to hopefully take place in September 2021 at Kings Cross, which I have already signed up to attend. I have also reached out to contact Planted in the hopes of working with them in some capacity to achieve the goals of my project. Therefore, there is huge scope for addressing the spaces of pubs/bars, restaurants and pop-ups/ events with applications of nature. So, what do all of these spaces have in common? They serve food and drinks.
Reflection:
My project will not be focusing upon hotels, so I needed to find a term that encompasses spaces that involve the hospitality industry, entertaining, excludes hotel accommodation and serves food and drinks. The term needs to unify the spaces that I do wish to focus upon, being pubs/bars, restaurants, pop-ups and events. Consequently, my field for enquiry in my question became “commercial entertaining spaces which serve food and drink”. The term aimed to target the business element of the hostility industry, focusing upon the aim of pleasure from entertaining and removing ambiguity as to what constitutes hospitality; whilst specifying that the spaces sell food and drink.
However, I will continue my stakeholder engagement further to attempt to narrow in even further within the subsection of commercial entertaining spaces, which can be scaled to up include other fields of hospitality if successful.
Stakeholder Feedback/ Realisation:
When talking with stakeholders, both in hospitality businesses and biophilic experts, I began utilising the term ‘commercial entertaining spaces that serve food and drink’. However, when utilising this term multiple stakeholders needed greater clarification of which spaces I was in fact referring to. From these conversations I realised that the term ‘commercial entertaining spaces that serve and food and drink’ wasn’t actually effective in engaging with my stakeholders. Although the term does accurately represent the area I am aiming to target according to academic studies, it isn’t easily understandable from a public perspective, you have to be an expect in defining hospitality and what determines hospitality vs entertainment to understand the area I am targeting. Consequently, it was ineffective and required changing.
Decision – Working Phrase For The Area Of Hospitality
Therefore, I stepped back and looked again into a term that could be easily understood and accurately represented the field I am aiming to target. I also looked back at prior engagement with my stakeholders and when utilising the term hospitality I didn’t have any issues of understating the areas I aimed to target. Therefore I looked back further at utilising hospitality, but instead of hospitality spaces keeping the clear commercial element by stating hospitality businesses and the defining into serving food and drink. Subsequently, my working term is now ‘hospitality businesses that serve food and drink’.
Bibliography
Brotherton, B. (1999)”Towards a definitive view of the nature of hospitality and hospitality management.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 11(4): 165- 173.
Brotherton B., Wood R.C. (2000). “Hospitality and hospitality management.” In: In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates (eds. C Lashley, A Morrison), pp. 134- 156. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.
DeZeen (2020) “BIG reveals masterplan for “urban lily pads” off coast of Penang Islands” DeZeen [Online] https://www.dezeen.com/2020/08/21/biodivercity-big-masterplan-penang-island-architecture/ Accessed 02/05/21
GQ (2021) “‘BiodiverCity’ is an alluring glimpse at how designers will take on climate change” GQ [Online] https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/bjarke-ingels-biodivercity Accessed 02/05/21
Oxford (2021) “Hospitality” Oxford [Online] https://www.lexico.com/definition/hospitality Accessed 28/04/21
Panpacifc (2021)”Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay, Singapore” Panpacific [Online] https://www.panpacific.com/en/hotels-and-resorts/pr-collection-marina-bay.html Accessed 27/04/21
Planted (2021) “About Planted” Planted [Online] https://www.planted-cities.co.uk/what-planted Accessed 01/05/21
Telfer, E. (2000). “The philosophy of hospitableness.” In: In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates (eds C Lashley & A Morrison), pp 38-55. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.
The Resident (2019) “Experience urban forest bathing in London’s first biophilic hotel suites” The Resident [Online] https://www.theresident.co.uk/lifestyle-london/londons-first-biophilic-hotel-suites-filled-with-houseplants/ Accessed 01/05/21