Friday, July 19, 2013

Sleep with a stranger?

The seems to be an increasing array of short-term accommodation options readily available to travellers.

Thanks to the internet, a scrum of budding providers can package and market imaginative alternative accommodation offers.

We've blogged about new alternative accommodation sectors that include Garden Camping, Taxi Cab Accommodation, Private Caravan Rental, Spare Bedroom Accommodation and the rising phenomenon of Holiday Rentals.

We've now discovered a new accommodation sub-sector that may take-off?
A new online hotel room-sharing program is either a why-didn't-somebody-think-of-this-sooner brainstorm, or completely nuts.

Easynest, which launched in May, capitalizes on the fact that most hotel rates are based on double occupancy, whether or not there are two occupants. By finding someone to share the room — and the cost — rates are cut in half.

It works like this: You create a profile with Easynest, list the locales you're headed for (or interested in going to) with your dates, and wait for a "host" (the hotel room booker) to contact you. Host and "guest" then agree on dates, costs and other particulars, and the guest pays the host directly.
For now, the service is free, though the site's founders say they'll eventually charge a commission for the service. Current membership is about 400.

A related (sort of) item: MeetAtTheAirport.com, a website whose members register where they'll be laying over in order to meet other travelers with similar timetables, queried its married women members on whether they've fantasized about having a one-night stand with a stranger while traveling solo.

Sixty-three percent said they have and 27% of respondents said they'd actually had a one-night stand while on the road. Thirty-eight percent said they prefer traveling solo to traveling with their significant other.

About 25% of the site's 80,000 members are women.

And considering the poll involved women who have gone to the trouble of joining a site so they can meet strangers in airports, maybe the results aren't all that surprising.

No word on why MeetAtTheAirport.com didn't query male members."
Source: Click HERE

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