Hospitality exchange
This article is a travel topic.
A hospitality exchange or home stay network is an organization that connects travelers with local residents in the cities they're visiting. If travelers can connect with the right people at the right time, they can get room and sometimes board in the place they're visiting for free or at a deep discount. Network size goes from a few thousands to a hundred thousands, and most networks are growing steadily.
Home stays have advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is that accommodation costs are much lower (at most networks for free) than at hotels or even youth hostels. More important, though, is the opportunity to make a personal connection with someone from a different culture and social classes, you see the destination you're visiting from a local perspective. You have your own adventure and as a side effect, the goal from some networks, this can build and strengthen intercultural understanding and reduce prejudices and intolerance.
There are disadvantages, though. Home stays require some additional planning before travel, and courtesy requires sticking at least reasonably close to your schedule. There are usually strict limits on the length of stay and what you can do in the home. And the opportunity to make a personal connection has its flipside: awkwardness between host and guest can make a visit to an otherwise pleasant city unbearable.
Networks
There are a number of different networks that connect hosts and guests, with different requirements for participation, restrictions for guests and member number and geographical spreading. Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing are the biggest online organizations with over 300 thousand members. The number of active members within the different networks is unknown due to a lack of standard definition of what exactly constitutes an active member.
For many, joining just requires filling out a Web form; some offer and others require further verification. Usually a Web listing or printed book of available hosts is provided, sometimes with eBay like reviews by travellers (or vice versa). All listed networks operate worldwide.
Here are how the various projects index by size:
Members * Organisation ------- ------------ 630,976 * #CouchSurfing Project 437,042 * #Hospitality Club 46,281 * #GlobalFreeLoaders 13,000 * #Servas 6,954 * #TravelHoo 4,044 * #BeWelcome 1,320 * #Pasporta Servo 4,000 * #Evergreen Bed and Breakfast Club
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This page was last edited at 11:11, on 17 September 2008 by Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Based on work by Fabian Kern, Wikitravel user(s) Morph, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel and others.
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