Definitions of welcoming
“Welcoming includes a set of attitudes, gestures and things which convey a person or an idea from the outside to the interior of a place or a community, and which transforms the stranger into a person or idea, known and accepted.”
Pierre Gouirand
Without going back to the etymological sense of the term, we can say that today the word “welcoming” designates both an act and a specific place.
One can consider:
=> The action, the way of welcoming
Welcoming then designates the act of receiving an individual, with the objective of providing him a service, and the way of making himself available to make the guest comfortable (“warm welcome”).
=> Then the place, the site, the company, the brand that welcomes customers
Welcoming then means a place, a site, which is clearly marked. The requester for information or service will normally find a receptionist there to indicate where he can be served.
Some definitions
Welcoming is the set of behaviors, policies and techniques implemented to successfully approach the tourist, in the sense of a quality human relationship. And the aims are also to satisfy the guest’s curiosity, his needs, tastes and aspirations, and with a view to developing a climate of encounter and exchange likely to stimulate knowledge, tolerance and understanding between people.
It is therefore a relational, interactive and subjective process.
It can also be an atmosphere, an environment, a state of mind, in short a set of attitudes, behaviors and gestures, because the psychological dimension calls for very deep feelings, on which it is difficult to act.
And we should not be limited to the relationship between the tourism professional and the guest and their respective commercial considerations. Welcoming is also the perceptions and possible reactions that may exist between a tourist and his hosting environment.
Today, we have two complementary and more current definitions of welcoming.
First, it is defined as an attitude and a predisposition towards the traveler, mainly coming from the analysis of the opinions given by travelers on websites.
“The tourist reception features people who come into contact in a given environment with a traveler who is looking for enriching experiences away from home. These hosts pay close attention to the well-being of the visitor, with constant kindness, which implies politeness and warmth. The result is to make him feel pleasure and well-being.”
Pierre Gouirand
And a more recent and more complete definition: