The Entrepreneurs by Derek Lidow

Author:Derek Lidow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BUS025000, Business & Economics/Entrepreneurship, BUS023000, Business & Economics/Economic History
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Lure of Hospitality

Another advance in scaling demand is exemplified in the Qingming shanghe tu scroll, described in the introduction. The number and variety of the depicted wine shops and restaurants make the scroll truly notable in the history of entrepreneurship. Hospitality—offering food, alcohol, comfort, and entertainment in a relaxed setting—proved a breakthrough idea for getting people of all kinds to spend money on something they did not need. Chinese entrepreneurs understood the demand-scaling power of positive emotions.

Hospitality as practiced in Song-era China and depicted in the Qingming scroll targeted the full range of classes: from commoners to “scholars” (people studying for civil service exams or tutoring others to pass the exams) and even prosperous landowners and merchants. Some restaurants, particularly the less formal ones, appeal to a range of classes, while the fancier ones, located in extravagant, multistoried structures, are clearly intended only for wealthier clientele. That said, all classes enjoy their free time spending what money they have to spare on food, drink, and entertainment. From the number of stacked empty plates, some of these customers have been eating for longer and spending more money than necessary to satisfy any degree of hunger (figure 7.5).

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