How hospitality fosters new businesses on the Internet

Abstract

This work aims to show how commensality, a dimension of hospitality, operates in the context of new Internet businesses. It uses theories of hospitality to analyse meal-sharing websites that seek to capitalize on the booming interest in gastronomy and the growing trend of the sharing economy. This article is one piece of a broader research project that aims to identify and characterize the protagonists of a new type of gastronomy and commensality business conducted in domestic environments, and promoted on meal-sharing websites in which professional or amateur chefs (hosts) and diners (guests) are connected with one another. To perform the study we conducted documentary research through Internet searches on shared gastronomic experiences; netnographic research on meal-sharing websites; and interviews with hosts registered on these platforms and with the owner of the Brazilian website Dinneer. Using a theoretical framework focusing on hospitality and commensality, which deals with the relations between hosts and guests, their motivations and wishes, and the tacit and explicit rules by which they are bound, we analysed the contents of the websites and the interview transcripts. The results of our research reveal a paradox about the services offered on the websites and the reality of the business for hosts and diners.