Courtesy call

A visit is the prospect of temporary residence of one or more persons or the temporary prospect of a place or institution by one or more visitors on their own initiative.

If the person is invited, it is called a guest. Common this is in service industries such as restaurants or hotels, where visitors are always referred to as guests, to emphasize the fundamental desirability of their visit ( cf. passenger, passenger ). At trade fairs, exhibitions, concerts, festivals and museums we speak mostly by visitors. The visit is usually free of charge, there is an entrance fee charged. In libraries, we speak rather of users.

While a guest is usually a welcome person, visitors can also be undesirable ( " intruder ").

In prisons the inmates can receive at set times visit.

Mythology

In ancient Greece, the ( foreign ) "guest" ( Xenos ) was under the protection of the supreme god Zeus ( Zeus xenios ).

Courtesy visit

The courtesy call or a courtesy call is waiting for someone to initially comply with social norms and not from a personal relationship with someone.

Purpose

Marie Calm writes in her 1888 published book The manners of good society: "The courtesy call or the" rounds "as they used to say, to distinguish this short visit of other longer, has the purpose of the relationships between people, the sociable communicate with each other to maintain and mutually express his participation on special occasions. "

Among the reasons, pay courtesy calls, write the Count and Countess Baudissin in Spemann's golden book of custom ( Berlin, Stuttgart, 1901): "The reason that causes us a courtesy visit, can be a very different nature. Either it is a first visit to a thank you visit for a received invitation, one feels obliged to express his congratulations or condolences, you have something special on your mind, or else it is, from the home in which you earlier wrong to adopt as a result of departure or a dislocation. "

Diplomacy

Apart from the official state visits is the courtesy visit and look for higher government circles. If two nations received diplomatic contact, but beyond that to announce nothing, courtesy visits to each other's nation are carried out by the government yet. Does the Entsendernation the diplomatic relationship as not very important to, it sends instead of his Government a representative thereof.