The silent influence of ingrained cultural practices on inclusive policies in the hotel industry: an integrative literature review

The global hospitality industry faces significant inclusivity challenges despite serving diverse populations worldwide. Major aspects that shape employee backgrounds are ingrained cultural practices, which are ideals and standards held by individuals within a community, passed down from one generation to the next. Every ethnic group has practices that are exclusive to it. One concept that bridges this gap is Ubuntu, a proposed pathway to achieving inclusivity. This paper analyses the influence of ingrained cultural practices on inclusive policies within the hospitality industry. This is significant because diverse cultural identities bring different perspectives, and cultures influence how people think and behave, which may threaten inclusion within the workplace, where there could be resistance to progress. This integrative literature review analysed 54 peer-reviewed publications (2008-2025) examining hospitality inclusion, Ubuntu philosophy, and cultural practices, utilising Google Scholar as the primary search engine. Journals were searched using keywords such as "Hospitality", "Hospitality inclusive policies", "Ubuntu", "intersectionality", and "ingrained culture". A total of 70 reviews were conducted, and 54 were the final sample of this literature review. Findings reveal conceptual ambiguity in Ubuntu interpretations across African contexts, with limited measurable integration of ingrained cultural practices into formal inclusion policies. The review also found that ingrained cultural practices do influence policies, but to a minimal extent. One reason could be that there are no measurements or criteria to evaluate culture, as it is more of an experience; therefore, it is perceived differently. The historical background of South Africa has led to the formalisation of inclusive legislation that incorporates aspects of culture and Ubuntu to some extent. However, the gap arises when organisations implement the legislation based on their interpretation. This review proposes operationalising Ubuntu as a knowledge system that explicitly integrates culture, inclusion, and humanness into policies, creating frameworks that resonate with employees' cultural epistemologies and advance genuine organisational transformation beyond tokenistic compliance. This study proposes an extension to the existing literature on inclusivity, with an emphasis on the principle of Ubuntu and its integration and limitations in the industry and its human resources processes.