Hospitality exchange

Hospitality Exchange is a form of accommodation whereby visitors stay in a house or apartment of a local of their destination. It is altruistic in nature.

Homestay is a broader notion encompassing hospitality exchange and equivalent forms for accommodation that are not free. The key aspect of non-altruistic homestay which differentiates it from the usual renting is that the host is very near (typically lives in the same house, apartment, etc.), and is not a hospitality professional or a commercial entity.

Nowadays many apartments advertised on the homestay networks are bought or rented for the purpose of short-term rental, with the host not living there, at least not regularly. The operator competes for apartments on the long-term housing market, where in popular cities 30–70% of rental apartments may be on the short-term market in the tourist season, which drives up prices and can cause anger among locals. For the traveller, however, they can be a convenient option.

Hospitality exchanges, homestays for money, and short-term rentals are all widely advertised online, and are mainly accessed from intermediary sites. Commercial homestay sites act as brokers and charge a service fee or a commission; the providers of lodgings charge for the lodging itself. These options are very often indistinguishable from renting and may be legally treated as renting (subjected to relevant regulations and taxed likewise), but they are also covered in this article, since there's a lot of overlap.