HOTEL CULTURE AND SOCIAL-CONTROL

This paper examines key sociological perspectives on hotels. Two main issues are considered: the role of the hotel as an agent of social exc lusion, and the extent to which hotels place constraints on interactio n between guests. A necessary link exists between these two. Hotels as agents of social control need to ensure that guests receive individua l attention. For economic reasons, however, ''attention'' must be deli vered collectively. To sustain the impression that guests are recipien ts of personal attention, mechanisms of control are required to contai n spatial and social order, interaction, and decorum. This article ide ntifies these mechanisms, exploring their consequences for a theoretic al conceptualization of hotels.