Host and be Hosted - Couchsurfing

(Redefining tourism: personalised, mutually-constituted experiences in intimate spaces.)

Host and be hosted: tourism as reciprocity in the Couchsurfing community

Jonathan Felton

Key themes: authenticity and expectation; trust and exchange; hospitality; decommodification; community.

Abstract

“A new form of alternative tourism – one which endorses trust and exchange as mechanisms for deeper cultural respect and appreciation – has emerged. It has been labelled ‘intimate tourism’. This research project is centred around one such expression of intimate tourism: the phenomenon of Couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a global network of travellers united by a common purpose: “a world made better by travel and travel made richer by connection”. By looking at themes such as trust in the host-guest relationship; the concept of authenticity in modern-day tourism; and gift exchange, this project will assess the value of the interactions between members of this unusual community.”

The Couchsurfing Mission:

‘The Couchsurfing way’“The tourist does not travel to visit the physical foreign space, but to visit the stranger residing in that space” (Bialski, 2009)

“The main purpose is to connect strangers rather than pre-existing contacts, and the connections established traverse virtual space and enter member’s homes” (Rosen et al, 2011)

• Decommodification of travel.• Interdependence of people and

communities.• Valuing uniqueness and

personal connection.

Research QuestionsTrust:• How are issues of trust and risk negotiated prior to, and during, the encounter?• Are trusting relationships inherently stronger in connection?• What is the significance of the ‘home’ space as an indicator of trust?

Exchange:• What is exchanged in the relationship between traveller and host if there is no financial transfer?• What, if any, barriers exist to a meaningful exchange taking place?• What does the encounter/ the exchange mean to those involved?• Are experiences too reliant on the characteristics of the traveller and host? • Do these relationships last beyond the encounter?• Do power imbalances exist in the relationship?

Hospitality:• What conditions exist in the contract between the host and the guest?• Is hospitality ever abused? What are the signifiers of exploitative behaviour?• What is the significance of the public/private boundary to deeper cross-cultural connection?• In what ways do these host-guest binaries become more relaxed during the encounter?

Anything else (Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Community):• In what ways does Couchsurfing represent a decommodification of the touristic experience?• How does the internet function as a platform for re-spatializing cosmopolitanism?• Who is excluded from the community?• What motivates people to be part of the community?

Methodologies

• Covert auto-ethnography (field diary) – is the CS mission realised in host-traveller interactions?

• Interviews/ focus groups with other community members.

• Participant observation of online material.

“Now all of us frustrate ourselves by the expectation that we can make the exotic an everyday experience (without it ceasing to be exotic)” (Boorstin, 1978)

“Authenticity has become the philosopher’s stone for an industry that generally seeks to procure other people’s ‘realities’” (Taylor, 2001)

Trust, hospitality and gifts“the idea of home is always attached to a relation between the participants involved and the unique circumstances in question” (Nielsen, 1999)

“the host is the host in not being absolutely hospitable” (Derrida, 2000)

“for whoever gives can only give what he or she cannot perceive, even unconsciously” (Royle, 2003)

“cooperative relations going against immediate self-interest but beneficial for social well-being are strategically and motivationally enabled under conditions of risk” (Nickel and Vaesen, 2012)

All it’s cracked up to be? Initial considerations.

• Escaping the tourist trap?• Cosmopolitan paradise?• Who connects with whom?• Contrived/ simulated?• Negative experiences?• Social capital – post-high

culture elitisms?