The unwelcome: Inhospitality, humanity and the asylum hotel

Abstract

This article reflects on the webinar “The unwelcome: Inhospitality, humanity and the asylum hotel”, organised by Hotel Management School Leeuwarden and the European Tourism Futures Institute as part of the “Creating What’s Next” series. The webinar examined how hotels, commonly associated with welcome, comfort, mobility and temporary shelter, become contested spaces when used for asylum reception, refugee accommodation, or detention-like arrangements. Building on insights from Dr Andrew Burridge, Professor Jonathan Darling, Georges El Hajal and Dr Geesje Duursma, the article explores four connected insights: the global detention hotel as hidden border infrastructure; carceral hospitality and the blurred boundary between detention and accommodation; humanitarian hospitality in crisis contexts; and hospitability as reciprocal hosting. The discussion suggests that accommodation does not automatically constitute hospitality. People may be housed while still experiencing restriction, uncertainty, exclusion, or lack of recognition. The webinar also raised important questions about how more humane forms of hosting might be imagined and practised. The article argues that the asylum hotel challenges hospitality scholars, educators and practitioners to rethink the ethical foundations of accommodation in contexts of displacement, vulnerability and political contestation.