‘Fast hospitality’ and technology: Contemporaneous connections between ‘liquid’ and ‘solid’ in modern times

What the paper says

This article explores the use of technology to provide hospitality at high speed. The requirements of economic competition and achieving profitability underpin the need for speed. Speed, in this article, is viewed as a function of Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of liquid modernity but also points to evidence of solid structures. Solidly positioned corporations set the pace of the speed agenda. Trade journal articles offer insight into the corporate-managed push for technology-driven speed. Themes are noted that relate to ‘fast hospitality’: an overarching concept that blends the desire for speed and liquid relations with the profit-seeking practices of ‘solidly’ entrenched corporate entities. The interplay between Bauman’s notions of solid and liquid is presented as one of contemporaneous connection rather than historical transition. Rather than representing a shift from the liquid to the solid – a notion more consistent with Bauman’s work – ‘fast hospitality’ would appear to be deployed in a way that weaves them together strategically. Such actions help corporations avoid uncertainty as well as address an absence of focus and clear direction: conditions typically associated with liquidity. ‘Fast hospitality’ is a function of solid organizational structures that aim to preserve a rationalized economic order, thus minimizing uncertainty, during liquid modern times.