Editing Hospitality Club

{{short description|Hospitality exchange service}}
{{Homestay service}}
{{Other uses of|HC|HC (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox website
| name         = Hospitality Club
| logo         =
| logo_caption = 
| logo_size    = 200px
| area_served  = Global
| owner        = Veit Kühne
| founder      = Veit Kühne
| products     = [[Homestay]]
| services     = [[Social networking service]]
| launch_date  = {{Start date and age|2000|07|11}}
| current_status = Offline
}}
'''Hospitality Club''' ('''HC''') was a [[hospitality exchange service]] (a [[gift economy]] network for finding [[homestay]]s whereby hosts were not allowed to charge for [[lodging]]) accessible via a website. HC's specified goals were to facilitate "intercultural understanding ... bringing people together ... travelers and locals".<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://hclub.livejournal.com/profile/ | title=
The Hospitality Club | via=[[LiveJournal]]}}</ref>

==History==
[[File:HC monnai 2005 banner.jpg|thumb|right|Hospitality Club [[banner]]; taken in July 2005 in [[Monnai]], France.]]
Hospitality Club was founded in July 2000 in [[Koblenz]], by Veit Kühne, who was inspired by a trip to South America.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/hospitality-club-netzwerk-eines-traeumers-a-399666.html | title=Netzwerk eines Träumers | trans-title=Network of a dreamer | work=[[Der Spiegel]] | date=2 August 2006}}</ref><ref name=umstrittenes/><ref name=top10>{{cite news | title=Top 10 hospitality travel sites | url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/jun/27/travelwebsites.top10 | first=Vicky | last=Baker | work=[[The Guardian]] | date=27 June 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Couchsurfing mit Haken | trans-title=Couchsurfing with a hook |url=https://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/finanzen/article153750482/Couchsurfing-mit-Haken.html |last=Rodemann |first=Julian |work=[[Die Welt]] |date=29 March 2016}}</ref> It later incorporated technology from Hospex.org, a similar service.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://hospex.org/ | title=Welcome to HOSPEXerver | website=Hospex.org}}</ref>

In 2005, a disagreement between some members of Hospitality Club and its founder led to the foundation of [[BeWelcome]].<ref>{{cite news | first=Vicky | last=Baker | url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/apr/19/caracas.adventure?page=all | title=Going local in Caracas, Venezuela | work=[[The Guardian]] | date=18 April 2008}}</ref> Many HC members, who became  volunteers within [[Couchsurfing]], left HC towards CS because of its missing legal status and insufficient management transparency.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Managing a non-profit hospitality platform conversion: The case of Couchsurfing.com |journal=Tourism Management Perspectives |date=2019-04-01 |volume=30 |pages=138–146 |doi=10.1016/j.tmp.2019.02.018 |url=https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/files/58160942/finalsubmit10.pdf |access-date=28 May 2021 |language=en |issn=2211-9736|last1=o'Regan |first1=Michael |last2=Choe |first2=Jaeyeon |s2cid=150755845 }}</ref>

In February 2006, Kühne was working full-time on Hospitality Club.<ref>{{cite news | title=Backstory: Extreme vacation | url=https://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0228/p20s01-wome.html | first=Amelia | last=Thomas | work=[[Christian Science Monitor]] | date=28 February 2006}}</ref> In the spring of 2006, an event took place in [[Riga]] with 430 participants from 36 countries.<ref name=stern/>

As of July 2006, the site had 155,000 members.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/travel/09prac.html | title=Go to Strangers (and They'll Come to You) | first=Susan | last=Stellin | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=July 9, 2006 | url-access=limited}}</ref> This number grew by around 1,000 new members a week in 2006.<ref name=stern>{{cite news |title=Freunde in der Fremde | trans-title=Friends abroad |url=https://www.stern.de/digital/online/hospitality-club-freunde-in-der-fremde-3504590.html | date=27 January 2006  |work=[[Stern (magazine)|Stern]] |language=de}}</ref> 

In 2007, [[Google Trends]] search volume for hospitalityclub.org started to decline and was overtaken by the search volume for [[CouchSurfing]].<ref>{{cite conference |doi=10.1109/ICDMW.2015.239 |title=Hospitality Exchange Services as a Source of Spatial and Social Data? |year=2015 |author1=Rustam Tagiew |author2=Dmitry I. Ignatov |author3=Radhakrishnan Delhibabu |conference=(IEEE) International Conference on Data Mining Workshop (ICDMW) |pages=1125–1130 |place=Atlantic City|arxiv=1412.8700 }}</ref>

In 2008, HC had more than 400,000 members from 200 countries.<ref name=top10/> 

In 2013, HC had more than a half of million members from 200 countries.<ref name=noobligation>{{cite journal |url=https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=20380753  |last1=Локша |first1=Анна Владимировна |title=О необходимости повышения социальной составляющей молодежного туризма в России |journal=Телескоп: Журнал Социологических И Маркетинговых Исследований |date=2013 |issue=5 |language=ru |issn=1994-3776}}</ref>

By 2017, only one third of members were still active.<ref name=umstrittenes>{{cite news |url=https://www.tagblatt.ch/ostschweiz/appenzellerland/ein-umstrittenes-geschaeftsmodell-ld.609319 |title=Ein umstrittenes Geschäftsmodell | trans-title=A controversial business model | first=Jesko | last=Calderara | work=[[St. Galler Tagblatt]] | date=2 August 2017 |language=de-ch}}</ref>

By April 2022, the website was completely offline.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.unsere-zeitung.at/2022/08/24/hospitality-club-ein-nachruf-2/ |title=Der Hospitality Club – ein Nachruf | trans-title=The Hospitality Club – an obituary |work=unsere-zeitung.at | date=24 August 2022 | language=de-at}}</ref>

==Safety measures==
Hospitality Club had a [[reputation system]], whereby members left references for others.<ref name=stern/> For added safety, members were encouraged to check each other's passports, although it rarely happened.<ref name=top10/> 

==References==
{{Reflist|1}}

==External links==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmvuHfyGNw A podcast about hospitality club] on German [[RTL_(German_TV_channel)|RTL]]

{{Sharing economy}}
[[Category:Hospitality exchange services]]
[[Category:German social networking websites]]