Receiving and Shaping the Tourist Appraising Gaze: the Lived Experience of Reception Work in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry - Tourism and Visual Culture: Theories and Concepts - page 161

service interaction can be the deciding factor as
to whether the service is judged to be good
quality by the guest, e.g. '[e]ven if the ham-
burger is succulent, if the employee is surly, the
customer will probably not return' (Sasser and
Arbeit, 1976, p. 63, as cited in Urry, 1990,
p. 68). It is often this human element that can
make or break the experience for the guest. At
every point of contact between frontline staff
and a guest, there is an opening to make or
break the experience. Jan Carlzton (1987), past
president of Scandinavian Airline Systems (SAS)
referred to this opening as a 'moment of truth'.
A moment of truth is the point at which a server
and customer interact to produce the service by
the former and consume the service by the latter
(Carlzton, 1987, p. 2).
As such, hospitality reception work can be
referred to as a service practice , and can be
shown to have a number of elements that typi-
cally characterize services. In providing good
quality service there is a set of expectations,
rules, roles and etiquette to consider. Percep-
tions of service by guests start with a set of
expectations (Czepiel et al ., 1985). The expec-
tations relate to the specifi c setting, server and
type of service as well as to the prevailing ethos
of the time. Derek Picot (1993) a former hotelier
during wartime, writes that it is the server's
responsibility to be genuinely concerned with
the welfare of guests, especially the guests'
safety, e.g. in his book on hoteliers he provides
a heroic account of an Austrian hotel manager,
who during the time of the war in Iraq in 1990
took the personal responsibility of delivering all
his foreign guests to safety through the war
zone. Picot's book describes hotel work as being
exotic, amusing, bizarre, glamorous and some-
times even requiring real bravery (Guerrier and
Adib, 2000, p. 256). Similarly, Telfer (2000)
writes that 'Good Samaritan' hospitality depends
on whether the service provider is able to iden-
tify with the guests' expectations and needs and
is able to be compassionate and concerned.

Guerrier, 2003). These are qualities that are
considered to be typically feminine (Leidner,
1993). The term receptionist in itself is a femi-
nized noun. It is shown that the nature of recep-
tionist work is highly gendered as it mirrors
domestic labour provided by females in the
home setting. Therefore, hospitality reception
work can be conceptualized as a feminized
practice . Being a receptionist not only requires
displaying female qualities and taking on a
female role, but also looking typically feminine
especially in a way that attracts male attention,
e.g. Adib and Guerrier point out that 'reception
work may be constructed as women's work in
that it requires a substantial amount of emo-
tional labour. The physical appearance and pre-
sentation of a woman receptionist is important;
she should be friendly, helpful and sexually
attractive' (2003, p. 420). Employers also pro-
mote femininity as an asset of the company. For
example, the Sri Lankan airlines used to run an
advertisement which stated '[w]hen your busi-
ness is business . . . our business is pleasure'
(Joseph Treaster, as cited in Enloe, 1983, p. 33).
Hall discusses how these qualities are implicitly
incorporated into the procedures for recruiting,
training and rewarding servers. She writes 'serv-
ers are required to present themselves as sex
objects. Hiring young attractive women and
dressing them in uniforms to highlight their
“sexy” looks is commonplace' (1993, p. 456).

Pleasing practice

Third, the literature on hospitality frequently
refers to the requirement to 'wow!' the guests;
receptionists are expected to enchant, captivate,
charm, magnetize, delight and enthral the guest
in a number of ways, e.g. receptionists attempt
to delight the guest by inducing positive emo-
tions, or try to 'bring-around' the guest by trans-
forming their negative emotions through the
performance of emotional labour. Receptionists
also provide a magnifi cation of attentiveness to
guests through the performance of recognition
labour, which serves to pamper and spoil the
guest. Furthermore, receptionists use their looks
and speech to attract and charm the guests
through the performance of aesthetic labour
(Warhurst and Nickson, 2007), which is the

Feminized practice

Second, to be hospitable hosts, receptionists are
expected to be kind, warm, generous, nurturing
and attractive (Novarra, 1980; Adib and