Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Tourist use of catering facilities varies according to the specific service on offer, and
on their being located throughout cities, often in association with other facilities
(S.L.J.Smith 1983b). Many catering establishments in cities reflect local community
needs, and tourism complements the existing pattern of use. Nevertheless, Ashworth and
Tunbridge (1990:65) do acknowledge that restaurants and establishments combining food
and drink with other entertainments, such as night-clubs, discos, casinos and the like,
have two important locational characteristics that render them useful in this context: they
have a distinct tendency to cluster together into particular streets or districts (what might
be termed the 'Latin-quarter effect') and they tend to be associated spatially with other
tourism elements including hotels, which probably themselves offer public restaurant
facilities. Catering facilities also have a predisposition to cluster within areas where
shopping is also a dominant activity, particularly in mall developments where food courts
have become a popular concept in the USA and Australasia, while cosmopolitan cities
have also developed a distinctive café culture aimed at residents and the visiting market
who seek a café ambience. In the UK, deregulation of the brewery-owned (tied) public
houses in the 1990s led to the development of new chains which have moved into this
leisure market. Figure 3.12 illustrates the distribution of public houses for one of the
more dynamic and enterprising chains—J.D.Wetherspoon. The origin of the company's
expansion and development in the West Midlands is reflected in Figure 3.12 as is a clear
strategy to have a market prominence in most of the key urban centres where the
population and demand exist (including London). In 2001, the company operated 530
public houses, offering competitive staff wages and well-priced drinks and food.
Company employees have grown from just under 4000 in 1997 to over 14,000 in 2001, as
the number of public houses increased from 194 in 1997 to 530 in 2001, with a turnover
of £484 million.
INSIGHT: Towards geographical analyses of hospitality: research agendas
While the geographer has predominately focused on the spatial and cultural implications
of catering, there is a well-developed hospitality literature which has examined the
historical evolution of the hospitality trades (Walton 2000). Critical debates associated
with the 'McDonaldization' of society (Ritzer 1993) and linked to globalisation, where
the principles of fast food restaurants are dominating society, especially hospitality (e.g.
the use of technology in place of people, service standardisation, set rules and procedures
and clear division of labour) have introduced predictability into hospitality services
globally. For the tourist experience, a global and spatial homogeneity associated with the
McDonaldization concept raises important cultural questions related to the type of
experience being produced and consumed by tourists. In new conceptualisations of
hospitality, Lashley (2000) challenges existing concerns with hospitality as a narrowly
defined commercial activity, namely the 'provision of food and/or drink and/or
accommodation away from home' (Lashley 2000:3), preferring new approaches. Lashley
(2000:4) introduces a new
