Founded 2000 Location Germany | Founder Veit Kühne Area served Global | |
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Focus Intercultural competence Products Hospitality service, social network | ||
The Hospitality Club operates hospitalityclub.org, a hospitality service and social networking website. The website provides a platform for members to homestay as a guest at someone's home, host travelers, meet other members, or join an event. Unlike many hospitality services, Hospitality Club is an example of the gift economy; there is no monetary exchange between members and there is no expectation by hosts for future rewards. Like all hospitality services, Hospitality Club is a form of collaborative consumption and sharing.
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History
Hospitality Club was founded by Veit Kühne in 2000 with the help of friends and family. The organization, open to anybody, followed from a similar hospitality service organized by Veit Kühne called AFS Hospitality Network. The concept for Hospitality Club was inspired by the SIGHT hospitality network of Mensa and it is the successor of Hospex.org, the first Internet-based hospitality exchange network, established in 1992 and with which it joined forces in 2005.
Organization and policies
The club is based on the work of hundreds of volunteers around the world.
The policy of the club explicitly forbids uses other than hospitality exchange, such as dating, job-seeking, commercial use, and website promotions.
The website includes a forum with certain rules; for example it is forbidden to post personal data of other members, and volunteers prefer not to discuss the organization's strategy on the forum, but encourage members to contact them directly.
Ownership and website development
The hospitalityclub.org domain name is directly registered to the founder of the site, Veit Kühne, who, in 2006, was working full-time on Hospitality Club.