Reflections on the home setting in hospitality.

This article builds on an ongoing debate regarding the nature of hospitalitymanagement education by adopting a social scientificapproach to the study of hospitality. It does so through focusing onthe home setting. Major themes from studies on the private home aredescribed and their relevance to understanding the traditional commercialhome suggested. The themes relate to meanings of home,anthropomorphic home, behaviours in the home, home and gender,tyrannical and affectionate associations, home as virtual community,the home and hotel as antithetical concepts. Home is identified as analternative benchmark to the hotel for the analysis of commercialhomes. The commercial home is theorised as a distinctive dichotomousorganisation owing to its fusion of the social, commercial anddomestic domains. Emerging from the review, a challenging newresearch agenda for the traditional commercial home focusing on‘soft’ concepts and dimensions is proposed