Hospitality Club (HC) was a

hospitality exchange service Hospitality exchange services (hospitality exchange platforms, hospitality exchange networks or HospEx) are social networking services used for accommodation of travellers, where hosts do not receive payments. The relationships on homestay, hospi ...

gift economy A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...

network for finding

homestay Homestay (also home stay and home-stay) is a form of hospitality and lodging whereby visitors share a residence with a local of the area (host) to which they are traveling. The length of stay can vary from one night to over a year and can be prov ...

s whereby hosts were not allowed to charge for

lodging Lodging refers to the use of a short-term dwelling, usually by renting the living space or sometimes through some other arrangement. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging for sleep, rest, food, safety, shel ...

) accessible via a website. HC's specified goals were to facilitate "intercultural understanding ... bringing people together ... travelers and locals".

History

Hospitality Club was founded in July 2000 in

Koblenz Koblenz ( , , ; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz'') is a German city on the banks of the Rhine (Middle Rhine) and the Moselle, a multinational tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman military p ...

, by Veit Kühne, who was inspired by a trip to South America. It later incorporated technology from Hospex.org, a similar service. In 2005, a disagreement between some members of Hospitality Club and its founder led to the foundation of

BeWelcome Hospitality exchange services (hospitality exchange platforms, hospitality exchange networks or HospEx) are social networking services used for accommodation of travellers, where hosts do not receive payments. The relationships on hospitality exc ...

. Many HC members, who became volunteers within

Couchsurfing CouchSurfing is a hospitality exchange service by which users can request free short-term homestays or interact with other people who are interested in travel. It is accessible via a website and mobile app. It uses a subscription business model ...

, left HC towards CS because of its missing legal status and insufficient management transparency. In February 2006, Kühne was working full-time on Hospitality Club. In the spring of 2006, an event took place in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

with 430 participants from 36 countries. As of July 2006, the site had 155,000 members. This number grew by around 1,000 new members a week in 2006. In 2007,

Google Trends Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over a certain period of ti ...

search volume for hospitalityclub.org started to decline and was overtaken by the search volume for

CouchSurfing CouchSurfing is a hospitality exchange service by which users can request free short-term homestays or interact with other people who are interested in travel. It is accessible via a website and mobile app. It uses a subscription business model ...

. In 2008, HC had more than 400,000 members from 200 countries. In 2013, HC had more than a half of million members from 200 countries. By 2017, only one third of members were still active. By April 2022, the website was completely offline.

Safety measures

Hospitality Club had a

reputation system A reputation system is a program or algorithm that allow users of an online community to rate each other in order to build trust (social sciences), trust through reputation. Some common uses of these systems can be found on E-commerce websites s ...

, whereby members left references for others. For added safety, members were encouraged to check each other's passports, although it rarely happened.

References

External links

A podcast about hospitality club
on German

RTL RTL may refer to: Media * RTL Group, a European TV, radio, and production company *** List of RTL Group's television stations (including part-owned channels) *** List of RTL Group's radio stations ** RTL Lëtzebuerg, usually referred to simply a ...

{{Sharing economy Hospitality exchange services German social networking websites