"You feel like a second-class guest": Customer discrimination against Arab guests in Israeli hotels

Abstract

This article examines the experiences of discrimination and social exclusion among Christian and Muslim Israeli Arabs while vacationing in hotels in Israel. The in-depth interviews conducted raise five key expressions of discrimination: (1) perception of Israeli Arabs as a security threat; (2) discriminatory behavior by other guests; (3) discriminatory behavior by staff; (4) disregarding the expectations of the Arab market segment; and (5) communication problems between Arabic-speaking guests and Hebrew-speaking staff. This exploratory study is of social, political, and managerial importance, and sheds light on a form of discrimination that has thus far been overlooked in the hospitality literature.