ABOUT > My Friends Hotel

(Peter made this animation, his first ever, with kids felt tip pens, a photocopier and he learnt a bit of Flash too!)

We are the World’s first interest-based accommodation network.  Founded in March 2008, our site is for independent travellers wanting to rent a property, by the night, from Hosts who share their interests (eg, a British runner staying with a New York runner for a race), or to stay somewhere to enjoy their interests (eg, a house in South Africa to explore the best vineyards), giving a more local experience.  You can add or rent out any type of property: from your spare room in London for the Olympics, to a luxury villa with private beach in Thailand for a relaxing holiday. Hosts can make some extra cash and meet like-minded people; while Guests save money on hotel costs and get a trusted local travel experience.

Our members also benefit by choosing who stays based on their profile, promoting their listing through friends, Facebook, etc, our safe verification payment system to protect both Host and Guest, our Hosts’ local knowledge, genuine on-site Guest reviews, contacting other community members freely and above-all, they can meet adventurous, like-minded people and friends of friends!

We are also different from your ordinary accommodation website because:

We allow you to search by ‘Tags’ – We have over 200 tags, including Holiday Type, Setting, Local Activities, Services, Facilities, Interests and Groups to filter your search by, so you can easily find the right property. By considering the 3 personalities involved (the Guest, the Host and the Property) we match up our ‘personalities’ perfectly – it’s a bit like dating site for accommodation!

We are a Community – This builds trust, open communication, and friendship.  Our Guest reviews are 100% genuine by real people who have booked on-site which generates repeat bookings and reinforces trust.

Our site is safe – Hosts are protected against cancellations, and Guests are protected against unethical Hosts thanks to our unique verification code system (read more about it here).  Our payment system helps prevent against holiday scams  (see a Telegraph Newspaper Article about the rise in fake holiday villa advertisements)

Our Ethos is simple: To help you find the perfect place to stay based on your interests, so you can tailor-make your trip whatever your budget.

We give 10% to charity

We do not charge any joining fees (now or a year down the line), nor do we charge you to upload additional photos, or to appear higher in search rankings, or even to contact members.

Our website caters for the fact that:

- 89% of travellers trust the recommendations of their peers
- 73% of referrals for owner-rented accommodation comes from friends, family and previous guests and that it’s 6 times cheaper to get a repeat booking or referral than to get a new customer.

We’re a new-generation in online travel, with lots of innovative ideas in development coming online by the week!

If you’re a Host…

1. List your property and add your profile in minutes
2. Guests will email a booking request – simply accept / decline based on their profile
3. Receive your payment within 24 hours of your Guest arriving / collecting keys

Or, if you’re a Guest…

1. Search for a property (private property or a room in Hosts home), anywhere in the world
2. Send your Host a quick booking request
3. Once accepted to stay, payment is held securely until you safely arrive at your accommodation / collect keys

For information read our Help section or contact our Customer Support Team.

It’s as simple as that. It’s free for Guests to join and free for Hosts to list accommodation. Brilliant!

Guests – No Hidden costs – the price you see is the price you pay!  Plus, we charge a £3 | €4 | $5 admin fee, dependent on the currency of the booking.  (Oh come on, that’s not a hidden fee, we’ve told you about it!  Some of our competitors charge 12% as a hidden fee so watch out…)

Hosts – No bookings, no fees! We take a 10% service fee on bookings made through the site.

(Our main competitors charge up to 15%, with 12% being paid as a hidden fee by Guests.  That’s enough to put anyone off!  We think they do this to keep advertised prices low, and hit you with a service fee only at the point of booking).

We don’t like this underhand approach to hiding costs and our Guests don’t like nasty surprises, so we’ve kept everything simple and out in the open.  What you see is just what you get at MyFriendsHotel.

What’s included in the fee?

• Your Marketing team – we will promote our sites listings through-out the internet and in the mainstream media.
• Your Sales – we are building our membership, that means people will look for properties on here first.
• Your Social Media marketing – be it Facebook, Twitter or Linked-In, Read-It, Digg, Delicious, StumbledUpon….we are working to promote your listings any way we can.
• Your Development team – we are finding new, intuitive and semantic ways for people to find your listing.  Already, our Tagging system is unique in this sector and we’re developing other ground-breaking tools to help our members find relevant properties.  The problem with the big name competitors is that properties get lost.  This is what one of our new members had to say:

“I had previously been advertising with Holiday-Rentals (Home Away) but they are increasingly expensive and I find my property just gets lost further down the list unless I pay the premiums for special advertising.”

In conclusion – however we structure the payment system the Guest ultimately pays the cost. We want our costs to be transparent and fair. We’re a small company and just starting out so we’re open to your thoughts, ideas and ultimately wanting to build a site to improve the lives of travellers and their hosts. We’re on your side!

1. Make money by renting out a place to sleep: a holiday home, your spare room or even hammock.
2. List your accommodation for free!
3. Choose who stays with you based on their Profile.
4. Guests can find you by searching for:
- your Interests
- your Accommodation activities or nearby facilities – ie: is your property well-placed for fishing, climbing, surfing?
- Groups that you ‘join’ or have set-up
5. Receive Personal and/or Accommodation reviews via Guest feedback to promote your property.
6. Payments are made through our secure booking system to protect both Hosts and Guests.
7. Promote your listing through friends and facebook.
8. Communicate with Guest openly through the website.
9. Meet adventurous like-minded people and share your local knowledge.

1. Save money on your accommodation costs.
2. Stay with local people and benefit from local knowledge.
3. Stay with like-minded people or find suitable accommodation by searching:
- Hosts who share your interests
- Accommodation activities or facilities – ie: is it well-placed for fishing, climbing, surfing?
- Groups that you ‘join’ or have you set-up
4. Find trusted accommodation through friends, friends of friends and Guestbook feedback.
5. Create Groups to find like-minded Hosts.
6. Communicate freely with Hosts and other members.
7. Paying MyFriendsHotel.com directly, rather than Hosts, enhances security and prevents fraud.
8. Meet adventurous like-minded people.
9. Travel more!

MyFriendsHotel.com provides a free platform for Hosts to list rental accommodation (anything from a spare room to a spare villa). Guests can find accommodation by Location, Interests, Key Words, Friends, Groups and can contact Hosts and Book accommodation directly through our secure booking system. Feedback is only activated once Hosts and Guests have completed their trip. This ensures that reviews are 100% genuine. Only when a booking takes places are fees applied. 10% for Hosts and a nominal booking fee of £3 | €4 | $5 is charged to the Guest.

(click on the image to find out more)

The Team & Vision

The short version…

I built this site because I wanted a better way to rent out my holiday home and to find interesting places to stay. I wanted the people staying at my home to be ‘my kind of people’ and I wanted to enjoy unique travel experiences myself.

The longer version…

Social Media is now ubiquitous in business but we’ve often found there to be a lot of noise and not much substance. We’re trying to do the opposite. Let’s us know if we get it right or wrong!

CLICK ON AN ICON to link to our page:

Facebook – your support will make a difference

Of course we’re on Facebook – we keep the page updated with relevant news and articles and we’d love to hear from you too!

Twitter - we’ve got 2300+ followers!

Using Twitter we bring you interesting links, thoughts and aim to keep you up to date with what’s going on. To join the chat just click on the icon.

YouTube – we love video

Our YouTube channel brings together a lot of great content from YouTube as well as some of our own videos. Our channel will be regularly updated with content we’ve found interesting and relevant to either the site, the world we live in or simply as a fun distraction to make you look at things differently. Subscribe and let us know what you think.

LinkedIn – a small but discerning group

We’ve have a small following on Linked-In but the blog has also received some surprising traffic from here so if you’re part of this network then please join our Linked-In group and help get some trusted professionals involved.

RSS Feed – click here to stay up to date! Easy .

“The vacation rental industry has incredibly high customer satisfaction and an unbeatable repeat rate, yet only 10 percent of U.S. adults have ever booked a vacation rental and travelers are replete with misconceptions about the product.” (PhoCusWright: Vacation Rental Market – Poised for Change)

• 50 million consumers consider vacation rentals worldwide, 30 million of those are in the US.
• 16 million second homes exist in Europe and the US alone.
• 16,500 people can be vouched for on Facebook through the average ‘friends of friends’ network.
• 89% of people trust the travel recommendations of their peers.
• 89% of vacation rental guests intend to rent again in 3 years. Only 1% would not rent again due to a negative experience.
• 87% would recommend vacation rentals to a friend or relative.
• 81% of Holiday rental reviews are positive, only 3% are negative. However, only 16% of Guests are asked to leave feedback!
• 78% of Holiday renters are more likely to book accommodation with a review.
• 73% of referrals for owner-rented accommodation comes from friends, family, referrals and previous guests.
• 60% of Yahoo customers rated Trust as the most important aspect in booking a holiday online.
• 22% or travellers start looking for a Holiday with no destination in mind.

(sources: Compete, PhoCusWright, FlipKey, Yahoo)

…and to finish up, here’s a metaphor for the site – an unusual view of a familiar city. Happy travels!