Is Luxury Hospitality Guilty of Cultural Appropriation?

Is Luxury Hospitality Guilty of Cultural Appropriation?

Luxury hospitality companies can make hundreds or thousands of dollars off their culturally immersive experiences but how much of that is going back to the communities and cultures they are honoring—or appropriating based on who you talk to—is harder to measure.

For example, when Belmond Maroma Resort & Spa introduces Slow Beauty’ wellness retreats, including a workshop on the health benefits of Mayan-inspired rituals and a Shaman ceremony on the beach, does the luxury hospitality brand owe something to the culture or the people that these new and expensive wellness offerings originate from?

It is a paradox that presents itself again and again in the spas, dining rooms and meticulously decorated guest rooms at luxury properties worldwide – especially in today’s age of immersive travel.

With travelers’ insatiable and growing appetite for local and insider experiences, operators and hoteliers are eager to provide experiences that appear authentic and connect visitors with the local community.

“What I find hard to run through my critical algorithms, though, is the idea of a meal devoted to local traditions and ingredients that is being prepared and consumed mostly by people from somewhere else,” New York Times food critic Pete Wells wrote about his decision to not visit Noma Tulum.

“This ‘sense of place’ expectation animates a lot of the jousting behind the annual list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, among other things. And it has led to a strange new sight: dining rooms where expensive celebrations of the local environment are enjoyed largely by tourists.”

But it can be difficult to determine where the line between appropriation and culture lies.

“Appropriation suggests theft, and a process analogous to the seizure of land or artefacts. In the case of culture, however, what is called appropriation is not theft but messy interaction. Writers and artists necessarily engage with the experiences of others. Nobody owns a culture, but everyone inhabits one, and in inhabiting a culture, one finds the tools for reaching out to other cultures,” wrote author and NYT contributing opinion writer Kenan Malik in In Defense of Cultural Appropriation last year in the New York Times.

Many hoteliers sincerely strive to do justice to the regions and cultures where they’re located – although not all with the intended outcome.

“Bemused by the site’s mishmash of references to Native American, Eurasian, and Latin American cultures, I wondered how many ethnic heritages one company could co-opt before crossing the threshold into appropriation,” wrote one visitor to the boutique campground hotel El Cosmic in Marfa, Texas.