Reading hospitality: the semiotics of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons

This article introduces a social semiotic methodology for the analysis of hospitality marketing texts and explores the complexity of reading websites as a sign vehicle. The work also develops a social semiotic reading that locates the analysis within a conceptual framework, which underpins and directs the individual’s interpretation process. This hermeneutically results in multiple readings and interpretations according to the individual’s social, cultural and geographical knowledge. The conceptual framework that informs the reading and production of a semiotic discourse of hospitality draws from debates surrounding notions of consumption and identity, hospitality as a social and cultural construct, and recognizes that the marketing and interpretation of hospitality within contemporary society are both influenced by historical and ideological constructs. As such, the practice of hospitality needs to be not just understood in terms of its industrial significance, but also in terms of hospitality’s significance to the culture and society that it reflects or is located within.