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 162

projection of a professional image of well-
presentedness and stylized communication. As
all of these forms of labour serve to please the
guest, reception work can be theorized as a
pleasing practice. Telfer (2000) believes that not
all who enter the hospitality profession think of
it as just a job. She contends that making people
happy by entertaining them could be a strong
motive for entering the profession. Those who
genuinely want to please the guests will do more
than what they are expected to do, or they may
ascribe some values to hospitality, to which they
aspire (Telfer, 2000, p. 45). She states that 'if a
commercial host looks after his guests well out
of a genuine concern for their happiness and
charges them reasonably, rather than extortion-
ately, for what he does, his activities can be
called hospitable' (Telfer, 2000, p. 45).

staff to be fl exible in service delivery. As the
organization's 'foot soldiers', they have to be given
the responsibility to 'respond effectively, quickly,
and courteously to the particular needs of the
customer' (Urry, 1990, p. 71). Urry contends
that the 'variability in demand for many services
means that a considerable premium is placed
on the fl exible use of labour' (1990, p. 68). On
the other hand, there are routine tasks that take
place in the organization, which can be stan-
dardized and regulated to increase productivity
and profi t for the organization; this standardiza-
tion can also benefi t the guests as they may
expect services that are familiar, effi cient and
competitive. This is where organizations such as
McDonald's have been successful. Ritzer has
shown that calculability, predictability, effi ciency
and control (1996) are the four most important
factors that have generated success for organi-
zations such as McDonald's.

Ambiguous practice

Culturalized practice

Fourthly, hospitality reception work is an ambigu-
ous practice as it involves both uncertainty and
predictability. That is, on the one hand, hospi-
tality servers are expected to follow manage-
ment directions and provide a highly scripted,
prescribed and standardized form of service; on
the other hand, servers are expected to be self-
directed and provide a highly fl exible, unique
and customized form of service. On one level,
there is much uncertainty as to what actions are
appropriate, especially when the exact nature of
the service cannot be pre-determined. Exam-
ples include situations where guests need to be
compensated in an appropriate way (immedi-
ately in real time) or idiosyncratic requests have
to be met. Guests dictate the nature of the ser-
vice, as in most other services. However, with
hospitality, the dictates of guests are given
greater priority because it is a high-contact sys-
tem. That is, frontline workers have a high
degree of contact with guests and as a result
have to accommodate more personal requests
and customize their interactions, as demon-
strated above in the section on Pleasing Prac-
tice . As a result it is diffi cult to standardize or
rationalize the service as the paying customer
may provoke a change in the system of opera-
tion that may not have been anticipated (Urry,
1990, p. 68). What is required is for frontline

Finally, hospitality reception work can be theo-
rized as a form of culturalized practice , as it
involves facilitating cultural relations. The study
of cultural relations is important to understand-
ing the role of receptionist. As Urry states '. . .
work in tourist industries cannot be understood
separately from the cultural expectations that
surround the complex delivery of such services.
Work relationships in tourist industries are sig-
nifi cantly culturally defi ned' (1990, p. 41). As
noted previously, meeting guest expectations is
very important in hospitality reception work.
Travellers from different cultures have different
preferences and expectations, which hospitality
reception workers need to understand and
satisfy, e.g. those who come from a power dis-
tance society (Hofstede, 1979) expect the
server to communicate respect and take a
subordinate role. Reception work also has an
American cultural bias in terms of the way in
which service standards are set and behaviour
is prescribed, and receptionists need to be
able to choose between the cultural values
inculcated during childhood from the new
cultural values that they have learnt at their
place of work. Sometimes the organizational
culture, which has been adopted from American