Bewelcome.org -- a non-profit democratic hospex service set up for growth

TL;DR

This paper analyzes bewelcome.org, a non-profit democratic hospitality exchange platform, comparing it with similar services to identify factors influencing growth and community dynamics through extensive data analysis.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive data-driven analysis of bewelcome.org and compares it with other hospitality exchange services to understand growth factors.

Findings

Community engagement influences platform growth

Interconnected communities share user behaviors

Comparison reveals unique and common growth factors

Abstract

This paper presents an extensive data-based analysis of the non-profit democratic hospitality exchange service bewelcome.org. We hereby pursuit the goal of determining the factors influencing its growth. It also provides general insights on internet-based hospitality exchange services. The other investigated services are hospitalityclub.org and couchsurfing.org. Communities using the three services are interconnected -- comparing their data provides additional information.