| Part ofa series on |
| Homestays |
|---|
| Hospitality exchange services |
| Hospitality for work |
| Hospitality for money |
| Home exchange and others |
| Area served | Global |
|---|---|
| Owner | Veit Kühne |
| Founder | Veit Kühne |
| Products | Homestay |
| Services | Social networking service |
| Launched | July 11, 2000; 25 years ago (2000-07-11) |
| Current status | Offline |
Hospitality Club (HC) was ahospitality exchange service (agift economy network for findinghomestays whereby hosts were not allowed to charge forlodging) accessible via a website. HC's specified goals were to facilitate "intercultural understanding ... bringing people together ... travelers and locals".[1]
Hospitality Club was founded in July 2000 inKoblenz, by Veit Kühne, who was inspired by a trip to South America.[2][3][4][5] It later incorporated technology from Hospex.org, a similar service.[6]
In 2005, a disagreement between some members of Hospitality Club and its founder led to the foundation ofBeWelcome.[7] Many HC members, who became volunteers withinCouchsurfing, left HC towards CS because of its missing legal status and insufficient management transparency.[8]
In February 2006, Kühne was working full-time on Hospitality Club.[9] In the spring of 2006, an event took place inRiga with 430 participants from 36 countries.[10]
As of July 2006, the site had 155,000 members.[11] This number grew by around 1,000 new members a week in 2006.[10]
In 2007,Google Trends search volume for hospitalityclub.org started to decline and was overtaken by the search volume forCouchSurfing.[12]
In 2008, HC had more than 400,000 members from 200 countries.[4]
In 2013, HC had more than a half of million members from 200 countries.[13]
By 2017, only one third of members were still active.[3]
By April 2022, the website was completely offline.[14]
Hospitality Club had areputation system, whereby members left references for others.[10] For added safety, members were encouraged to check each other's passports, although it rarely happened.[4]