Cultural appropriation in hospitality - my top tips on avoiding it. And why being another 'neighbourhood hotel' isn't enough.

The topic of cultural appropriation in the hotel sector is one that I feel very passionately about. With so many hospitality brands opening more and more properties outside of their home market, how can then ensure that when they are launching in a new region they are going for appreciation over appropriation?

Here are my top tips:

💜 Diverse teams are essential to the future of hospitality and can be essential to avoiding and understanding cultural appropriation.
If you are opening a hotel in a new destination, hire locally - don’t just bring in your hot shot team from your most successful property to caretake the new one, this can cause so many more problems than benefits.

Hire locally where you can, and hire a diverse team. Make sure the people sitting around the table are representative of not only your target audience but society in general.

💥 When hotel brands hire diverse employees, they gain internal voices who can question and challenge concepts before they are made public. People from different cultural backgrounds can address ideas before they make the cut. Diversity also allows brands to proactively address appropriation versus appreciation and create concepts and experiences that are more inclusive to customers overall.

🤘 It's important to honour the artistry and ideas of others while acknowledging their origins. Within hotels, it is common for the property to either reflect the locale and/or to find inspiration from multiple cultures especially when it comes to the decor, F&B and wellness offers. If this is the case, there are so many wonderful ways that, rather than appropriating cultures, you can celebrate and support them.

When adopting the concept of cultural exchange, make sure the conversation goes deeper than just an aesthetic level - this can be a valuable learning opportunity.

When this is done effectively and with respect, it will become obvious why for example adopting a sacred artefact - such a native American headdress - as a costume to be worn at a festival or beach club is absolutely not ok.

It is also important to give credit to your cultural collaborators, give back and provide support. Being another ‘neighbourhood’ hotel isn't enough any more. Giving back goes way deeper than only seeing the positives of a new hotel gentrifying a ‘run down neighbourhood’ (and out pricing people who have lived there for generations).

😞 Own Up to your mistakes, learn from them and grow. Navigating cultures isn’t an easy task, and we can all make mistakes. If you do, own up to them, use it as an opportunity to educate yourself, and don't forget to apologise to those people whom you have offended.

Reflections…

A week rarely goes by without me recommending an episode of Radio 4’s Desert island Disks to someone — a friend, a parent at the school gates, my husband, even my hairdresser. There’s something about the connection through music, and the magic of the presenter (currently the brilliant Lauren Laverne) that sparks conversations which stay with me long after I’ve finished listening. There are several episodes that I return to on long train journeys, my favourites being, Ian Wright (makes me cry every time), Kate Winslet, Marina Abramović, Michael Caine, Anthony Joshua, Ronnie O'Sullivan — and especially Romesh Ranganathan.

Yesterday I listened to Romesh’s episode for the fourth time. Each time I focus in on something different. This time, what really stayed with me were the stories about his parents moving from Sri Lanka to the UK in the 1970s, and his reflections on growing up as the child of migrants. It reminded me how powerful it is to hear people’s origin stories — not just where they’re from geographically, but the cultural influences, expectations, tensions and humour that shape them.

That’s what intercultural awareness really is. It’s curiosity. It’s listening. It’s understanding that everyone is carrying histories and contexts we can’t see at first glance. And when we take time to understand that — whether through a podcast, a conversation at the school gates, or in the workplace — we work better together. https://lnkd.in/e--tyGKB