Chapter 5 Host–guest Relationship in VFR Tourism and Sociocultural
5.3 International PhD Students as VFR Hosts
5.3.2 The experience of being VFR hosts
tasks. The results reported in this section serve as guidance concerning the main features of the hosting role in VFR tourism.
In addition, concepts of hosting may vary across different cultures. For example:
In Iranian culture, when we host, we are responsible for everything, for a place to sleep, for food, for entertaining guests, showing them different places, maybe accompanying them for shopping…everything. (Mary) Certainly, with Kiwis, they are insulted if you are staying somewhere else but not their home. (Sue)
The quotations emphasise that hosting might be a culturally constructed responsibility. This view is consistent with a comment from Alex, presented earlier (in Section 4.4.6), regarding how her culture and religion characterise guests as people who bring blessings and luck, and that the hosts would often try to provide the best hospitality they can. Cultural norms and expectations contribute to defining what is included in the concept of hosting; i.e., what tasks are involved in hosting friends and relatives. For instance, with Iranian culture (shared by Mary), hosting appears to be an all-in-one job that means taking care of everything for the guests. This is similar to how hosting is perceived in the Polynesian culture, where hosting is unconditional and there is almost no limit to the extent of hospitality provided to guests (Schänzel et al., 2014). Accordingly, hosting can be very demanding for Iranian students (and, by inference, for students from any culture with similar expectations about hospitality and hosting). In Sue’s case, the local culture (which is also the culture of the host–her friends) encouraged her to stay at her New Zealand friends’ places when she travelled to visit them. In other words, culture plays a role in providing an opportunity for her to be the guest and her New Zealand friends to be the host. The experience of being VFR hosts by international PhD students is discussed in the next section.
Table 5.6 Experience of hosting friends and relatives
n Mean SD
Hosting friends in New
Zealand 169 4.33 .776
Hosting relatives in
New Zealand 125 4.36 .821
Table 5.6 shows that 55% (n=169, out of 307) of the respondents rated their experience of hosting friends in New Zealand while only 40.7% (n=125, out of 307) of them rated their hosting relatives experience. This also confirms a result of the study that there were more students with hosting friends experience than those with hosting relatives experience. The rating outcome in both cases was between ‘positive’
and ‘very positive’ with the mean scores of 4.33 for hosting friends and 4.36 for hosting relatives.
Hosting experience could be negative in some cases. For instance, in a study by Janta and Christou (2019) with female migrant hosts in Switzerland, some participants revealed that their hosting experiences were stressful and disruptive. The respondents were asked whether or not they had encountered any problems when hosting friends and relatives in New Zealand during their PhD studies. Answer options included
‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘not applicable (NA)’. Those who responded NA were not included for analysis in this section as it focuses on those who had been involved in hosting (either friends or relatives or both) and, accordingly, had their own opinions on the existence of problems caused by such experiences. The result is presented in Table 5.7.
Table 5.7 Existence of problems when hosting friends and relatives Problems when hosting
Friends Relatives
Frequency Per cent Frequency Per cent
Yes 34 19.7 22 16.7
No problem 139 80.3 110 83.3
Total 173 100.0 132 100.0
Table 5.7 shows that most respondents had not encountered any problems when hosting friends during their PhD study in New Zealand. This explains the positive experience of hosting friends illustrated through the high mean score in Table 5.6.
The perceived existence of problems when hosting friends and relatives might be associated with the respondents’ demographic characteristics. In particular, family status has been found to have a potential effect on hosting behaviour in other studies (Backer & Lynch, 2017). A chi-square test was used to examine if there was any significant relationship between the perceived existence of problems when hosting friends and relatives, and the respondents’ family statuses. No significant relationship was found [χ2(5,N=173)=5.60, p=0.347 for hosting friends, and χ2(5,N=132)=6.55, p=0.256 for hosting relatives]. In other words, perceived existence of problems when hosting friends and relatives in this study was not associated with family status.
As part of understanding the hosting experience of international PhD students, it is also important to understand what problems they might have experienced when hosting friends and relatives. The online survey included questions exploring these problems. Those who declared that they had encountered some problems when hosting friends were then asked to provide further details on the specific problems. A number of pre-listed problems were drawn from the literature including loss of personal space, increased expenses, stress of having to provide good hospitality, disruption to daily routine (Shani & Uriely, 2012). The respondents were asked to rate the likelihood of experiencing these pre-listed problems (on a scale from 0=‘very unlikely’ to 100=‘very likely’) in relation to their personal experiences. They could also state the problems that were not pre-listed through the ‘other’ option. Table 5.8 summarises the rating result on the pre-listed problems of hosting friends and relatives.
Table 5.8 Problems with hosting friends and relatives
Problems
Hosting friends Hosting relatives
n Mean SD n Mean SD
Loss of personal
space 34 53.59 35.16 22 64.00 34.96
Increased expenses 34 48.68 35.27 22 51.64 37.25
Stress 34 56.97 34.17 22 58.09 35.66
Disruption to daily
routine 34 53.21 33.62 22 55.64 33.19
Other 34 8.00 23.15 22 5.00 21.33
In respect of hosting friends, valid responses were obtained from 34 respondents.
Stress was rated the highest of all suggested problems with the mean score of M=56.97, SD= 34.17. Stress when hosting friends could be associated with a number of things such as feeling obliged to provide good hospitality to the guests, and hence, is more relevant to those who provide accommodation to their guests in their own place. Loss of personal space and disruption to daily routine also appeared to be common problems (M=53.59, SD=35.16 and M=53.21, SD=33.62 respectively).
Although the category of ‘increased expenses’ did not receive as high a mean score as the others, it could be argued that it was generally more relevant to the students who were cost conscious. These problems can also potentially contribute to creating stress for the hosts.
With regard to hosting relatives, the results were obtained from 22 respondents (Table 5.8). Loss of personal space and stress were the two most commonly reported problems (M=64, SD=34.96 and M=58.09, SD=35.66, respectively). Increased expenses and disruption to daily routine, while not rated as high as the other two, nevertheless received above mid-point scores. Overall, the ratings of all listed problems were higher in the case of hosting relatives than hosting friends.
Paired sample t-tests were conducted to compare the likelihood of hosting problems experienced by the students in the cases of hosting friends and hosting relatives. A Bonferroni correction was applied because the analysis was run with four pre-listed
problems. Hence, a p value of 0.0125 was adopted as the criterion for significance in order to preserve the nominal p value of 0.05. No significant difference was found in the mean scores between the two groups. The test results for each hosting problem were as follows:
Loss of personal space [M=58.27, SD=40.13 for hosting friends and M=57.93, SD=37.57 for hosting relatives, t(14)=0.03, p=0.98];
Increased daily expenses [M=64.87, SD=36.80 for hosting friends and M=60.73, SD=38.46 for hosting relatives, t(14)=0.45, p=0.66];
Stress [M=69.27, SD=34.51 for hosting friends and M=62.00, SD=38.51 for hosting relatives, t(14)=0.67, p=0.52]; and,
Disruption to daily routine (M=62.73, SD=36.78 for hosting friends and M=54.93, SD=36.89 for hosting relatives, t(14)=1.32, p=0.21).
Since no significant difference was found, it can be concluded that likelihood of experiencing the pre-listed problems was similar between hosting friends and hosting relatives. It is also recognised that the number of cases used in these paired sample t-tests is rather small (14 respondents), which might have had an impact on the test results. As such, generalisation of this finding should only be done with caution.
Table 5.9 presents the problems mentioned by some respondents of the online survey when hosting friends other than those pre-listed in the questionnaire.
Table 5.9 Other problems of hosting friends and relatives Response Hosting
Friends/Relatives
Other problems Score
R10 Hosting friends My partner was not happy 50
R68 Lose time to work on PhD 92
R407 Restricted the daily life of
flatmates
50
R401 Lack of time 80
R401 Hosting relatives Stress about the need to spend a lot of time with guests
100
Two identified key themes of other hosting problems drawn from Table 5.9 included disturbance to those whom the hosts live with (e.g., flatmates, partners) and loss of personal time (especially studying time). Respondent R401 mentioned the issue of being stressed about the need to spend a lot of time with guests, which could be incorporated into the pre-listed problem of ‘stress’. However, the respondent thought otherwise and rated it at the highest score suggesting its significance to him (or her).
Respondents R68 and R401 suggested that time commitment was another problem of hosting friends. It was associated with the issue of disruption to daily routines and the stress of having not enough time for studying. The problems mentioned by R10 and R407 are related, which emphasised the role of flatmates/roommates to the overall hosting experience. All these listed ‘other’ problems received above mid-point rating scores (>50) and, accordingly, imply their prominence.
It was hypothesised that the rating on the pre-listed problems regarding hosting friends and relatives might be influenced by the PhD stage that the respondents were in, because it could affect their time availability and, consequently, their ability to host. One-way ANOVA test was conducted to examine the relationship between these ratings and the respondents’ PhD stage. The result showed a significant relationship between the rating on the issue of ‘disruption to daily routine’ and PhD stages, F(4,22)=3.94, p=0.02. Post-hoc analyses (LSD and Tukey) indicated that the respondents in the ‘PhD proposal development’ stage (M=87.5, SD=15) and the
‘research fieldwork’ stage (M=72.5, SD=72.5) rated the problem of having their daily routine disrupted when hosting relatives higher than the respondents in other stages of their PhD study. Different stages of a PhD study carry different levels of pressure and time commitment, which may, in turn, influence the students’ ability to perform hosting tasks, and, thus, encounter hosting problems.