I was thinking about a topic for my hospitality blog, when I thought what is the history of hospitality? I then thought to myself, when did the industry begin? At first I thought of the Victorian era, but then I considered the fact that there have been taverns around the world for thousands of years. 
So where do I begin? Well, people have been looking after travellers for as long as people have been settled in permanent settlements, it is one of the basic elements of civilised societies. In ancient Greece, guest rights were one of the few accepted conventions that were respected throughout the Greek world. In the Roman era, cooks and chefs were highly paid and sought after professional, and as in ancient Rome it was not the woman's job to cook (most Romans, except the very poorest, had one or two slaves). Inns in biblical times only offered a bench in the corner of a room and sanitation was poor, as they shared their quarters with their animals. 
Only from the 16th century onwards did the inns and taverns start to improve. As these places were not suitable for aristocrats, people started to build luxurious buildings in order to attract the emerging middle-classes and even some nobility. This led to an increase in tourism, as the wealthy wanted to travel to spa towns, like Buxton. 
Tourism has fuelled the growth of the hospitality industry, for as more people are able to travel, the industry has grown to include leisure. In the Victorian era the tourism industry really started to boom, as the British government wanted to promote leisure time for the increasing urban population, in order to keep the workers happy and healthy. From the mid 1600’s to the mid 1800’s a large proportion of European nobility embarked of ‘Grand Tours’ of Europe. The idea of the Tour was to discover the cultural diversity and history of European cities. However, in essence it was mostly a tour of pleasure as most people travelled to Paris, then onto Milan, Venice, a stop of in Rome, all of which were essential.
Overall throughout centuries the hospitality industry had barely changed from travellers taverns and inns, until the 18th century and the advent of the industrial revolution, which sped up the growth of the tourism industry into the industry that we are all familiar with.
