A century of hospitality in Latvia: spatial succession

Andris Klepers

Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Social, Economic and Humanities Research

Janis Kalnacs

Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Social, Economic and Humanities Research

DOI: 10.22364/fg.20.2.13

Keywords: hospitality, tourism, history, hotels, GIS

Abstract

Hospitality is both a natural talent that people have and a deliberate and professional act to make the guest feel welcome. In the territory of modern-day Latvia, the accommodation of travellers began in the Middle Ages, with inns later replaced in cities by simpler drive-in homesteads or expensive hotels. Along with the establishment of the Latvian state, national tourism developed, especially in the 1930s, encouraging people to travel around the homeland and creating a network of tourist accommodations in rural areas. World War II and the Soviet occupation completely stopped that development. In this article, the tourist accommodations in Latvia included in publications in the 1930s are spatially mapped and related data are structured in a spatial data basis for further analysis. The development of the tourist accommodation network and spatial continuity up to the present day are studied. The overall network of tourist accommodation reached the scale that had been established in the regions of Latvia until 1940 only in the early 2000s – more than ten years after the restoration of Latvia’s independence. Only 3% of tourist accommodations operating today have ensured continuity, operating in the same places where they were a century ago.