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By Nathan Andrews, Author & Hospitality Consultant
Within our industry as with other industries as well, we often hear of how important the particular industry is to the growth of the overall economy, be it infrastructure, pharma, banking, airlines, etc. In our case, it is hospitality and how many jobs are created by this sector; and how much in direct and indirect taxes we contribute to the exchequer, etc. etc. This is usually followed by some form of request for special recognition of this significant value creation in the form of tax relief or regulatory assistance, so that the industry can make an even greater contribution to the country as a whole.
While the ask is often very fair, implicit in the ask is the representation that ‘we have reached thus far on our own and if our ask is acceded to, we could do much better with positive results for all stakeholders’. It is that unspoken premise that I would like to explore a bit deeper. Is the hospitality industry a creation of the environment or the creator of the ecosystem?
Recently I was reading of a very dark episode in the history of the people of Israel where a traveller, his concubine and servant on their way home, stop in a town square for the night where they ended up camping. A kind soul offered them a place in his home. The story however takes a dark turn when the residents of the town rape the woman and civil war breaks out as a result. How is this pertinent to this article? Simply to say that around 1400-1500 BC, inns, the origin of our industry, were as yet unknown. In a society where travel was very limited, clearly the need for purpose-driven traveller accommodation was not seen. The rare traveller simply hoped that they would find hospitality in some hospitable home.
Fast forward five hundred years and we meet the familiar but hapless innkeeper who has had to live down, for the past two thousand years the quite unfair reputation, in my opinion, of being the one who couldn’t provide a place for Joseph and Mary and the birth of the baby Jesus. We are now in the Roman era, famous for the roads that connected the far-flung empire, the relative safety provided by their judicial system and military might, which in turn facilitated travel across the empire.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that it is in the same time frame that we also get the equally famous ‘Good Samaritan’ who takes the unknown traveller he finds in a ditch, beaten and bloody, and places him in the care of an innkeeper, and covers the costs of this stranger out of his own pocket. Obviously, the Samaritan knew the location of the inn (it is still marked today on the road heading down from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea); the innkeeper was familiar with the Samaritan as a ‘regular guest’, and was willing to extend him credit if needed. Aspects that should sound strangely familiar.,
Clearly innkeeping had now arrived, though what such inns looked like would probably have been very different from what we imagine. Etymologists tell us that the word used for inn was also used for a place to stay or a guest room. Most inns at the time were probably extra rooms in a large house, and we should not equate Joseph and Mary’s plight with a modern-day hotel not honouring our online reservation.
Further change was seen in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, across Europe and England with the advent of stage-coaches, and inn-keeping became both a recognized profession and industry. If you have the opportunity to visit Reading in the UK, please stay at the Mercure, a former stage-coach inn; only the horses are missing. The arrival of the steam-engine and railroads further propelled the growth of the industry across the globe, most notably the America’s.
Travel across Canada and all the great hotels in the country,today all Fairmont’s, were built in conjunction with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Similarly, as sea travel expanded,hotels started to come up in and around the ports across the world; our own Taj Mahal in Mumbai being a prime example. Other notable examples being the Peninsular Hongkong, Raffles Singapore, and the Mena House in Cairo necessitatedby the opening of the Suez Canal.
This further grew exponentially with the growth of air travel, with Pan Am not only flying you around the world but offering their InterContinental Hotels beginning in 1946 in the cities they flew to.
What is the point of this history lesson? Namely, that if we are honest, hospitality has always been a follower not an initiator. Hospitality follows where others lead. Undoubtedly, our industry has a huge and hugely positive impact on society and the economy, but we are generally not first movers. The nature of our business predicates that successful investments in any new asset are at least preexisted by some ready demand and the availability of reasonable infrastructure.
While hospitality undoubtedly plays a key role in changing,even creating a destination, creating economic opportunities,and changing lives both at the macro and micro level, if we are truly honest I would submit we are still the cart not the horse.
