Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.3 Host–Guest Relationship in VFR Tourism
2.3.1 Hosts and guests in tourism: Then and now
a combination of motives, which result in their participation in various activities. This could be one of the reasons why marketers tend to promote it jointly with other types of tourism. However, Müri and Sägesser (2003) considered VFR tourism a truly distinct tourism type and, thus, they argued that it should be targeted separately instead of in connection with other types. This section has outlined the significant contribution of VFR tourism in various respects, which reinforces the need for a separate perspective on this form of tourism, instead of bundling it with other forms.
Crucial to such a perspective on VFR tourism is the host–guest relationship. That relationship is associated not only with the economic aspect of VFR tourism (as alluded to previously), but also with the sociocultural dimension of VFR tourism.
This relationship is discussed in the next section.
commitment to the place and the community, characteristics that distinguish hosts from tourists.
There is also a view that sees guests as engaging in ‘consumption practices’ and hosts as engaging in ‘productive practices’ (Sherlock, 2001, p.273). Reisinger and Turner (2002) considered the host–guest relationship in tourism as a service encounter, in which hosts were nationals of the visited country who provide a service to tourists. In this context, guests presumably could be the counterpart of that service encounter, who visit the country and receive the service provided by the hosts. Such a view of
‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ as two parties of a tourism service encounter has been adopted in many tourism studies that have addressed the host–guest relationship in the tourism industry (e.g., Thyne, Lawson, & Todd, 2006; Volo, 2011; Zhang, Inbakaran, &
Jackson, 2006). Within this view, hosts (i.e., locals) sometimes see guests (i.e., tourists) as a representation of tourism and, therefore, their attitude towards the guests may actually be towards tourism development instead.
In his book “The Holidaymakers”, Krippendorf (1987) distinguished the host–guest relationship as that between tourists and ‘natives’ by noting that: “the one [tourists] is at leisure, the other at work” (Ryan, 1991, p.144). Similarly, Smith (1977) addressed the social consequences of tourism to local communities through her study of hosts and guests. Smith (1977) argued that, from the anthropological perspective, the appearance of tourists can be seen as an invasion of privacy for the local people, and a reminder of how powerless they are against the outside world. As a result, the host–
guest relationship in such an imbalanced context can be resentful and hostile.
According to Oppermann (1993), the host–guest interaction sometimes causes problems where economic, social and cultural differences exist. On the other hand, Volo (2011) argued that economic and environmental factors are not the main drivers of social conflict between local residents and second home owners but, rather, sociocultural factors appear to drive the conflict, such as: disrespectful attitudes of second home owners towards the local landscape and local rules, their neglect of collective welfare, or the residents’ fear of change and a related sense of loss.
Sociocultural differences have often been understood as potential drivers for conflicts between hosts and guests, yet the possibility of such differences to foster cultural learning and understanding of social norms is often overlooked.
Although the importance of the host–guest interaction is acknowledged for the sustainable development of tourism (Zhang et al., 2006), the reality of this relationship can be challenging. Conflicts between hosts and guests are not only caused by differences in economic situations and cultures, as addressed in the literature, but are also reinforced by the fact that no underpinning pre-affiliation exists between them. From this perspective, hosts and guests are perceived as strangers and, therefore, they feel no obligation to look out for each other’s interests. That is why Krippendorf (1987) described the host–tourist interaction as frequently open to deceit, exploitation and mistrust. It should be noted, however, that some cultures have norms of treating unknown people as potential friends and so, are obliged to act in a friendly and hospitable way towards unknown arrivals (Burgess, 1982). In these cultures, the contact between tourists and hosts is perhaps less likely to generate negative feelings and hostility. The impact of culture on the host–guest relationship, therefore, needs to be understood within specific contexts.
In general, a common theme drawn from the above accounts of hosts, guests, and the host–guest relationship in the conventional tourism context is that, they are usually at opposite ends of a continuum (e.g. production–consumption or outsider–insider).
While the impact of cultural differences on the host–guest relationship is recognised, the role of culture in the formation of expectations that hosts and guests have for each other has not been strongly discussed. These expectations may influence perceptions of hosts, guests, and in turn, the host–guest relationship. Accordingly, identifying expectations and norms related to each role (i.e., guests or hosts) can be a potential approach to conceptualising the ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ roles. Yet those expectations themselves may well be quite dynamic. On the one hand, the traditional tourism context has changed with increasing global mobilities, leading to changes in the way
‘host’ and ‘guest’ roles may be perceived, especially in the VFR context. On the other hand, even during a trip, expectations of ‘host’ and ‘guest’ roles may shift or alter in response to particular social situations.
It should be noted that, given the pre-existing relationship between VFR participants, some discussions in this section about ‘host communities’ versus ‘guest tourists’ do not necessarily apply to the case of VFR hosts and VFR guests. These discussions, however, are still useful in understanding the difference between the host–guest relationship in the generic tourism context and in the VFR tourism context. A number
of emerging views on the notion of hosts, guests and their connections in the modern tourism context are discussed in the following section.
2.3.1.2 Hosts and guests in a mobile world
In a mobile world where global movements have become common, the conventional understanding of hosts and guests discussed previously is not as useful as it once may have been. According to Sherlock (2001), the blurred distinction between them is created due to the complex phenomenon of migration. She suggested that the transient nature of the world population adds to the complication in separating hosts from guests. There are circumstances where hosts become guests in their local area and vice versa. For instance, in a study by Liu and Ryan (2011), Chinese students in New Zealand who were originally guests to the country also acted as hosts to their visitors from China.
Within such a mobile context, the notion of immigrant hosts has emerged (Choi & Fu, 2018; Griffin, 2016; Humbracht, 2015). Different from conventional hosts, immigrant hosts are not born in their residing country but have emigrated to it and, perhaps, they consequently possess fewer local insights than hosts born in the host country. They exemplify the dynamic and blurred nature of the transition between the host and guest roles, by being guests when they first arrive in the area and then becoming hosts for visits from their friends and relatives (while perhaps remaining guests in non-hosting contexts). According to Humbracht (2015), when immigrant hosts engage in VFR tourism, they may gain a new perspective on their local environment as they participate with their guests in tourist activities that they had never been to. Similarly, a study of immigrant hosts in Canada showed that many of them, through hosting their friends and family, visited some of the regional destinations themselves for the first time (Griffin, 2016). When hosts are involved in tourist activities together with their guests, they then simultaneously perform a guest-related behavioural characteristic whilst being the host.
Conventionally, hosts are perceived as local residents and guests as out-of-town visitors; and, often, they are at the opposite ends on the continuum that shows their attachment to a destination. The concepts of ‘host’ and ‘guest’ in today’s more mobile context, however, should take into account both spatial and behavioural aspects. A focus on these aspects allows for these roles to be dynamic and to shift in line with
particular social situations and interpersonal relationships. In other words, it adds a finer-grained account of hosting and guesting that helps explain the dynamism and highlights nuances in the roles. For example, there is heterogeneity amongst a local population regarding familiarity with the locality. Whether recent migrants or not, some local people will have explored their local environment, both spatially and cognitively (e.g., relative to knowledge of local history), to a greater degree than other locals and, consequently, would understand and perform hosting obligations differently and have quite different understandings of what hosting might involve in particular contexts.
Overall, there is a lack of a theoretical foundation in modeling the host–guest relationship in tourism (Eusébio & Carneiro, 2012). The use of ‘host’ and ‘guest’ in the general tourism literature is different from that in the VFR tourism context. In the latter context, ‘hosting’, for example, is between people with prior connection and is not mediated through the institutions of a service industry. Accordingly, the host–
guest relationship in VFR tourism is more interpersonal than transactional. Moreover, given the connection between VFR tourism and migration, the dynamism of the host–
guest relationship in a mobile world discussed in this section may also be applied. The next section addresses the VFR host–guest relationship in more detail, by discussing what is known about the perceptions of VFR guests and VFR hosts, as well as their connections in the VFR tourism space.