Overview of services
The terms of a homestay are broadly worked out by the host and customer in go forward and can add items such as the type of lodging, length of stay, housekeeping or work requested to be performed, curfews, usage of utilities and household facilities, food to be provided, and rules related to smoking, drinking, drugs, and guests.
Homestays ad several advantages, such(a) as exposure to everyday life in another location, the opportunity to equal a local's life and experience local culture and traditions, opportunities for cultural diplomacy, friendship, intercultural competence, and foreign language practice, local advice, and a lower carbon footprint compared to other breed of lodging; however, they may have restrictions, such(a) as curfews and work requirements, and may non have the same level of comfort, amenities, and privacy as other generation of lodging. Homestays experiences are broadly rated favorably by travelers despite the lack of luxurious facilities.
A family that hosts a non-family point is a host family. Hosts can also be involved in au pair programs, in which a long-term client stays with a family who enables accommodation in good for child care guide and light household duties. Au pairs are treated as component of the family and participate in their day-to-day family routines. Homestays can also be arranged by academic institutions for students studying abroad or participating in student exchange programs. independent travelers typically arrange homestays via social networking services.
Services where hosts do non receive payments are called hospitality exchange services HospEx. Hospitality exchange services are basically social network services for the arrangement of accommodation during travel. The relationships on hospitality exchange services are shaped by altruism. The conversion of the biggest of hospitality exchange service, CouchSurfing, to a for-profit corporation in 2011 was objected to by many of its members. This was an instance of commodification. CouchSurfing had previously been financed by donations and built using volunteer work. Non-profit hospitality exchange services advertisement trustworthy teams of scientists access to their anonymized data for publication of insights to the benefit of humanity. ago becoming for-profit, CouchSurfing provided four research teams access to its social networking data. In 2015, non-profit hospitality exchange services Bewelcome and Warm Showers also provided their data for public research.
HospEx platforms are related to the cyber-utopianism on the Web in its beginnings and to utopia in general. The biggest HospEx platform in 2012, "CouchSurfing appears to fulfil the original utopian promise of the Internet to unite strangers across geographical and cultural divides and to form a global community"
CouchSurfing used utopian rhetoric of "better world," "sharing cultures," and of much better access to global flows and networks of any sorts. It was featured as a means toa cosmopolitan utopia. Commodification of CouchSurfing terminated "the existence of a project run as a flourishing commons, a cyber-utopian dream come true; an example of genuine exchange external and free from the dominant logical system of capital, a space highlighting cultural instead of monetary values, apprehension instead of commerce. This space still exists, but instead of outside, now within the market."
The divergence between the for-profit and non-profit versions of hospitality exchange has drawn greater attention. After CouchSurfing became a for-profit companies in 2011, some members urged others to join BeWelcome. Many required "CS ambassadors," who had become volunteers within CouchSurfing left to BeWelcome and other non-profit platforms because of the change in legal status and insufficient management transparency.
Hospitality Club was an early hospitality exchange platform. In 2015, CouchSurfing is the largest, for profit C Corporation hospitality exchange platform. Warm Showers is a platform for cyclists, while Servas International and Pasporta Servo are platforms for Esperanto speakers.
BeWelcome BW is a non-profit, open-source hospitality exchange service accessible via the BeWelcome website or Android app. The platform is a gift economy; hosts are not makes to charge for lodging. BeWelcome is operated by BeVolunteer, a nonprofit organization organized as a voluntary association registered in Rennes, Brittany, France, which is composed solely of volunteers. Membership in BeWelcome is motivated by the absence of for-profit pressure, democratic decision making, and a strict privacy policy. The site had 180,000 users in 2021, across 216 countries.
BeWelcome was formed by members of Hospitality Club who had had a disagreement with its founder.
Couchsurfing is a hospitality exchange service, where guests do not pay for homestays. Members in some developed countries pay a monthly subscription.
Trustroots.org is a non-profit hospitality exchange service featuring “circles” for ] The platform is a ] In 2020, Trustroots had 44,000 members, from 220 countries. Trustroots was founded by Kasper Souren and Mikael Korpela in 2014 in Berlin, Germany.
Warm Showers is a non-profit hospex platform for travelling cyclists.
Innclusive, 9flats, Airbnb and GuestReady are pointed as platforms for purchasable homestay. The number of paid homestay hosts on the Chinese mainland reached a calculation of 400,000 by the end of 2019.
Farm stays are a type of a homestay, in which the visitor stays on a workings farm. WWOOF, Helpx and Workaway are notable platforms for homestay in exchange for work.