Hospitality Club
| Area served | Global |
|---|---|
| Owner | Veit Kühne |
| Founder(s) | Veit Kühne |
| Products | Homestay |
| Services | Social networking service |
| URL | www |
| Launched | July 11, 2000 |
| Part of a series on |
| Homestays |
|---|
| Hospitality exchange services |
| Hospitality for work |
| Hospitality for money |
| Home exchange and others |
Hospitality Club (HC) was a hospitality exchange service accessible via a website. The platform is a gift economy; hosts are not allowed to charge for lodging and are also not obligated to host.[1]
History
Hospitality Club was founded in July 2000 in Koblenz, by Veit Kühne, sometimes called the inventor of courchsurfing.[2][3]
In 2005 disagreement between some members of Hospitality Club and its founder led to the foundation of BeWelcome.[4] Many HC members, who became volunteers within Couchsurfing (so-called CS ambassadors), left HC towards CS because of its missing legal status and insufficient management transparency.[5]
In February 2006 Kühne was working full-time on Hospitality Club.[6] In the spring 2006, the thitherto biggest HC-Party took place in Riga counting 430 participants from 36 countries.[7] As of July 2006, the site had 155,000 members.[8] This number grew by around 1,000 new members a week in 2006.[7]
In 2007 Google Trends search volume for hospitalityclub.org started to decline and was overtaken by the search volume for CouchSurfing.[9]
In 2013 HC had more than a half of million members from 200 countries.[1]
By 2017 only one third of members were still active.[10]
Operation
Hospitality Club implemented a reputation system, whereby members can leave references.[11][better source needed] For added safety, members are encouraged to check each other's passports, although it rarely happens.[2] HC's stated goals were to facilitate "intercultural understanding ... bringing people together ... travelers and locals".[12]
References
- ^ a b Локша, Анна Владимировна (2013). "О необходимости повышения социальной составляющей молодежного туризма в России". Телескоп: Журнал Социологических И Маркетинговых Исследований (in Russian) (5). ISSN 1994-3776. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
- ^ a b Baker, Vicky (27 June 2008). "Top 10 hospitality travel sites". The Guardian.
- ^ Rodemann, Julian (29 March 2016). "Couchsurfing mit Haken". Die Welt.
- ^ Baker, Vicky (18 April 2008). "Going local in Caracas, Venezuela". The Guardian.
- ^ "Managing a non-profit hospitality platform conversion: The case of Couchsurfing.com". Tourism Management Perspectives. 30: 138–146. 2019-04-01. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2019.02.018. ISSN 2211-9736. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
- ^ Thomas, Amelia (28 February 2006). "Backstory: Extreme vacation". Christian Science Monitor.
- ^ a b "Freunde in der Fremde". stern.de (in German). Retrieved 24 April 2021.
- ^ Stellin, Susan (July 9, 2006). "Go to Strangers (and They'll Come to You)". The New York Times.
- ^ Rustam Tagiew; Dmitry I. Ignatov; Radhakrishnan Delhibabu (2015). Hospitality Exchange Services as a Source of Spatial and Social Data?. (IEEE) International Conference on Data Mining Workshop (ICDMW). Atlantic City. pp. 1125–1130. doi:10.1109/ICDMW.2015.239.
- ^ "Ein umstrittenes Geschäftsmodell". tagblatt.ch (in Swiss High German). Retrieved 16 July 2022.
- ^ LAINE, NINA (2008). Trust in Superior-Subordinate Relationship: An empirical study in the context of learning (PDF). Retrieved 2 April 2021.
- ^ Luca, Lucian C. (2007). Staying without paying: Heading towards free tourism (PDF). Budapest: Central European University. Retrieved 28 May 2021.
External links
- A podcast about hospitality club on German RTL