Recent writing about the ‘service encounter’ suggests that high‐quality service requires employee commitment and this will involve a more developed and sophisticated approach to HRM than has traditionally characterised the sector. Through an in‐depth study of a sample of high service level hotels in the US and UK this paper argues, in contrast, that commitment can be created through a workplace culture that draws on family discourses and practices. It explores the ways in which this culture is developed and endorsed by both management and employees. This approach to generating commitment has costs in terms of the time and priority employees can give to their ‘real’ friends and family. By drawing on the highly gendered and hierarchical organisation of the family, it is argued that culture also contributes to gender stereotyping and hierarchies within and outside the workplace in ways that limit women's career opportunities.

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The aim of this paper is to analyze changes in the notion and role of rural tourism provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper examines how rural tourism in the pandemic year 2020 has accommodated human needs for well-being: which touristic resources have been mobilized and what knowledge structures have contributed to mobilization of touristic resources. The authors use a qualitative multimethod approach to develop insights about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on changing roles played by rural tourism in Italy and Kazakhstan. The theoretical novelty of the research is that it conceptualizes tourism resource mobilization strategies as a result of the historical and emerging knowledge structures. It was found that while both geographical and ethno-cultural resources form the basis for rural tourism development, knowledge structures play a critical role in setting both the interpretative and institutional frames defining rural tourism forms and directions of development.