4 - Hosting

Summary

Mon alimentation, mon sommeil, ma sécurité ici ne dépendent ni de communications internationales ni de papier monnaie. Ils sont entre les mains des [sic] ces frères humains, si semblables et si différents, vers lesquels je marche […].

(Ollivier, Marche I, 67)

(My nourishment, my sleep and my safety here depend on neither international communications nor paper money. They are in the hands of these human brothers, so similar and so different, towards whom I walk […].)

The traveller is, by definition, away from home and away from everything that home provides, including food and shelter, making travellers like Bernard Ollivier dependent on the travellees who supply their needs. Locating and using the services that are simple daily necessities, and interacting with those who provide them, consumes much time during any journey. While hospitality has a long history as a duty to strangers, the spread and growth of tourism has hastened the development of the hospitality industry, providing such services in exchange for payment and commercializing the relationship between travelling guests and their hosts. In the age of mass tourism, travellers can only expect to receive hospitality for a price; to be hosted privately, as a stranger, is a rarity. Travellers, like tourists, usually make use of commercial establishments, staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.