Nah, that argument doesn’t work. Dictionaries are not prescriptive. They describe how language is used. His argument is that the word has been used incorrectly for a long time. So of course that usage will be in the dictionary, just like any of the “corporate speak” mentioned elsewhere in this thread will be if it has been used long enough. If being in the dictionary doesn’t make other posters wrong, then it doesn’t make @UltraVires wrong.
The best way I could see to show his claim to be false would be to look at the etymological history, and seeing if the meaning of “customer of a hotel” predates the usage “person who is given accommodation by a host.”
If not, then I can’t see how this is any more than just opinion vs. opinion. It would mean that hotels and similar did choose the word “guest” for the positive connotations of being a guest at someone’s house. @UltraVires is annoyed by this usage, even though you (and I) are not.
Those would obviously be situations where the host (the venue) is accommodating the guest by paying for them. The objection @UltraVires has is to someone called a guest having to pay.
And Google ngram is interesting, but very incomplete for anything before 1800. It’s interesting data, but you need more to establish that there wasn’t some word that predates the usage of “guest” for hotels.
I think you guys are barking up the wrong tree. Even if @UltraVires is wrong about hotels, he’s right that there is this pervasiveness of businesses using language like “guest” to add a different connotation to the interaction. He is right about restaurants calling people guests when they are customers. Why would they do that except if “guest” implied something different from customer?
I think it fits right into what this thread is about. I’ve seen this trend in ads for a long time. Disney did this whole “come home” campaign to try and get people to come to the theme park. Olive Garden says “when you’re here, you’re family”–but family doesn’t normally pay for their meal.
You can’t tell me that’s not a sort of corporate speak, being used to try and make the customer feel more like a guest in your home would feel. And that sure seems like exactly how most hotels want their customers to feel.