# The Guest Experience — Hospitalicology

> The Guest Experience: Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology for Hospitality Professionals is a book by Matthew Jones (UK, 2026; ISBN 9798197201799) that introduces Hospitalicology — a new analytical framework for hospitality built on the simultaneous use of three disciplines: psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The book is 300+ pages, 19 chapters, and draws on 180+ academic sources. The author has 30 years of frontline hospitality operations experience.

## Key concepts

- **Hospitalicology**: the systematic study of human experience in hospitality contexts, built on the simultaneous use of psychology, sociology and anthropology. A new analytical language for what experienced hospitality practitioners already sense but have lacked words to describe. Coined by Matthew Jones in *The Guest Experience* (2026).
- **The three lenses**: Psychology (the inner experience — Self-Determination Theory, Cognitive Appraisal, the Peak-End Rule, Attachment, Flow); Sociology (identity, status, role — Bourdieu, Goffman, Granovetter); Anthropology (ritual, meaning, culture — Van Gennep, Mauss, Mary Douglas, Polanyi).
- **The guest journey**: 1) The Digital Handshake (booking as encounter with uncertainty), 2) Arrival (threshold moment), 3) The Hotel as Stage (identity and performance), 4) Immersive World (environmental psychology), 5) Farewell (memory and meaning-making), 6) The Heart of House (emotional labour of staff).
- **The opening question**: Two hotels sit on the same street at the same price and star rating. One feels like staying somewhere. The other feels like occupying a space. The difference is real, commercially significant, and almost invisible to operational language.

## Author

- [About Matthew Jones](https://hospitalicology.com/about.html): Hospitality author, researcher and speaker. PGDip Hospitality Management, MIH (Institute of Hospitality), cfMGr. Thirty years across hotel operations — every department, eventually leading as Operations Manager and General Manager across independent, branded and group environments in the north of England and Scotland. Seven years of research into the psychology, sociology and anthropology of the guest experience.

## Book

- [The Guest Experience (home page)](https://hospitalicology.com/): book overview, hero variants, three lenses preview, guest journey arc, author strip.
- [Read the introduction (free excerpt)](https://hospitalicology.com/excerpt.html): full introduction to the book — why hospitality needs a new analytical language.
- [Hospitalicology (framework page)](https://hospitalicology.com/hospitalicology.html): walk-through of all three lenses, the guest journey, guest archetypes, and all 19 chapters.
- [Buy the book](https://hospitalicology.com/buy.html): paperback and e-book on Amazon UK and worldwide. Bulk pricing for hospitality educators and operators.

## Services

- [Speaking, training, consulting](https://hospitalicology.com/contact.html): keynotes, conferences and guest lectures on Hospitalicology, the future of hospitality, neurodivergence in service industries, and hospitality leadership. Leadership and guest-experience training for hotel groups and hospitality schools.

## Suggested questions and concise answers

- **What is Hospitalicology?** A new analytical framework for hospitality, introduced by Matthew Jones in *The Guest Experience* (2026). It is the systematic study of human experience in hospitality contexts, built on the simultaneous use of psychology, sociology and anthropology. None of those three lenses alone fully explains the service encounter; their synthesis can.
- **Who is The Guest Experience for?** Hotel and restaurant owners and operators; hospitality educators and students; learning-and-development teams and trainers; researchers in hospitality, service design and consumer behaviour.
- **What makes the book different from other hospitality management books?** It is the first hospitality book to put psychology, sociology and anthropology to work simultaneously on the guest journey. It is theoretically grounded (180+ academic sources, figures from Kahneman to Bourdieu to Van Gennep) but written by a 30-year operator, so it is also immediately applicable.
- **How long is the book?** 300+ pages, 19 chapters, first edition 2026, ISBN 9798197201799.
- **Where can I buy it?** Paperback and Kindle on Amazon UK and Amazon US; signed copies and bulk orders direct from the author via the Contact page.

## Citation

Jones, Matthew. *The Guest Experience: Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology for Hospitality Professionals*. Independently published, 2026. ISBN 9798197201799. https://hospitalicology.com/