Are you going to some of the bigger foreign cities, do you hate hostels, and the hotel is too expensive for you? You can try to settle for someone else's home, it's easier than it might seem at first glance. So-called couchsurfing , a free sleeping at home from the internet community in the living room on the couch, is popular with young people and sometimes has a touch of adventure. AirBnB is also becoming more popular and similar. The abbreviation AirBnB originally meant "inflatable mattresses with breakfast". What does this service involve?
Many people have unused real estate, whether they are houses, chalets, apartments, individual rooms in their living quarters, or just a seat or a bed in the living room they provide for a fee. "It captures the interior, determines the conditions for arriving at it, lists deadlines, and anyone who has an interest can write and agree on the details. The communication takes place through the intermediary's website, which takes out a commission from the payments, but it insures potential damage and helps with problems, " explains Lukáš Zelený, head of the legal department of consumer organization dTest. And he adds: "As one of the aspects of the so-called shared economy, however, it hits the resistance of traditional entrepreneurs. Shared space-sharing hotels are regarded as unfair competition, which, unlike them, does not have to meet any technical or hygienic standards. "On the contrary, supporters claim that people who otherwise would not come to the hotel would be attracted to tourism. Reviews and ratings of each other ensure mutual trust, payments are secured electronically.
User reviews are generally a good guideline when choosing a partner to provide part of your vacation, whether it's a shared apartment, a guesthouse, a hotel, a specific travel agency, or a location. The Internet offers a wealth of possibilities to find out more about the services offered, from airframes to street-to-city images, discussion forums, or review portals and user experience. Watching a search engine at night can save you a lot of disappointment.
However, we do not always follow the user experience, some tourists are also orientated according to the star rating of the hotels. Experienced travelers, however, already know that a three-star hotel can be a very comfortable facility with top-class service but also a slightly better dormitory. The guilt is lacking binding standards and often also the age of the hotel. What was peak in the 1970s is no longer in line with today's standard. "What a particular number of stars should mean is that they try to unite the Hotelstar Union initiative, which has been adopted in fifteen European countries, but there are differences between them. For example, in Poland or the Netherlands, compliance with these standards is regulated by law, in Germany or the UK it is only a recommendation. The problem is that the initiative did not take place in popular Mediterranean destinations, so the hoteliers are not bound by anything. Mediterranean hotels often carry one or two more stars than they would otherwise meet standards, " says Lukas Zeleny.
Source: tz dTest
