| Hospitality Club |
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Information AboutHospitality Club |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HOSPITALITY CLUB | |
| international student societies | |
| hospitality services | |
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The Hospitality Club is an international, Internet -based Hospitality Service of approximately 130,000 members. Its members use the website HospitalityClub.org to coordinate accommodation and other services, such as guiding or regaling travellers. Hospitality Club is currently the largest such hospitality network. HISTORY Hospitality Club was founded by Veit Kühne in 2000 as a general-purpose internet based hospitality exchange organization. This organization, open to anybody, followed from a similar network organized by Kühne only for members of the student exchange organization AFS. The general concept was inspired by the SIGHT hospitality network of Mensa . The Hospitality Club had 100,000 members in January 2006 , but there is no estimate as to which proportion of members use it regularly. From various indications on user profiles it can be estimated the number of members actually exchanging hospitality in real-life is in the order of tens of thousands. FUNCTIONING Membership in the organization is free and is obtained simply by registering on the website. The core activity of the organization is exchange of accommodation. Acting as a host, a member offers the possibility of accommodation at his leisure. As a guest, a traveller may find possible hosts and contact them through the website. No money is involved — guests and hosts do not pay each other. , The duration of the stay, whether food is provided for free, for a fee or not at all, and all other conditions are agreed on beforehand to the convenience of both parties. After using the service, the host and guest may comment about each other. This provides a means to establish reputation, which is the main security measure. However, normally members with bad comments aren't deleted. For full authentication, users have to provide their real identity, which is screened by volunteers, and protected against changes) Apart from accommodation, members exchange other forms of hospitality, such as guiding visitors or providing travel-related advice. There are also Wiki -like ''Travel Guide'' sections and forums where members may seek partners for travels, hitchhiking etc. Volunteers within the club often arrange meetings or camps which are events that last several days that bring people together. ORGANIZATION AND CRITICISM There is no registered organisation behind the website in Germany or other countries, and the domain name is directly registered to the founder of the site, Veit Kühne., who is working full time on Hospitality Club. The club is based on the work of hundreds of Volunteer s around the world. Claimed motivation of the founding father is ''the idea that bringing people together and fostering international friendships will increase intercultural understanding and strengthen peace.'' It is the largest hospitality network, and there is ''a mission to find 1,000,000 friendly people''. The site contains advertising in the form of Google 's AdSense . The policy of the organization explicitly forbids many other uses, such as dating, job-seeking, commercial use. "Messages that are sent to promote other websites or business opportunities" are forbidden as well. It is also forbidden to discuss any aspect of the organization's strategy on the forum. To some members it is unclear how rules are set up, or how they are applied by volunteers. Some members are upset by this way of functioning. The founder prefers not to speak about bad experiences. {Link without Title} The organization thinks it is "best to have one global network" and has tried to cooperate, sometimes successfully, with other networks. It encourages its volunteers to tell all members they meet through other networks about Hospitality Club. REFERENCES |
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