Guest
Booking and signing up on homestayin.com is all free. You only need to pay 15% of the total homestay fee to homestayin.com to confirm your booking. Before you make a booking, guests should contact the host to check if they are available to host them for specific dates and can only proceed onto making a booking once the host has confirmed that they are available to host during those days. You must pay 15% of the total homestay fee as a deposit to secure the booking, and the remaining 85% will be paid to the host directly. Our system will send a booking confirmation e-mail with the details of the host including their exact address and contact details once the booking is complete.
Read more about booking
Check availability
Our hosts take bookings every time a guest contacts them through our private messaging system. You can make a booking after sending a message to the host to check whether they are available on the specific dates that you wish to travel.
Choose your destination
Please write in your destination in the search box. If you are searching for a particular landmark in a city, you can write in the name of the landmark and the search tool will find you hosts that are nearby. Our host database encompasses hosts from hundreds of nations across the 4 continents. In the case you cannot find a host where you wish to travel, please visit us again in the near future as we get new hosts every day.
Filter
Please use the filtering options on our search tool to find a host that suits your needs better.
Map search
Use the map search options within the search results to find a better homestay
Dates and number of visitors
Please choose the check-in and check-out dates and the number of people that are travelling with you.
Choose a room after choosing a suitable homestay
All the prices on the search results are the prices per night. The price can vary depending on the number of guests. Some hosts offer deals for people who are planning long-term stay, so please check for the weekly and monthly prices on the hosts profile.
Contact the host to check availability
Please use our message system to contact the host and check whether they are available on specific dates that you wish to travel. If you have any other questions about the homestay, you should ask the host when you contact them. Hosts are usually interested in the purpose of visit, age, hobbies or any specific requests you may have. You can confirm and secure your booking when you receive a confirmation message from the host that says that they are available to host you on the dates you wish to stay at their homestay. Once the booking is secured, you will receive a booking confirmation letter from our website that includes the specific address of the host, how to get to the homestay and the contact details of the host. When checking the availability of the host, it is wiser to choose and contact a number of hosts to increase your chances of securing a booking around your destination. When sending and receiving messages, our website will send e-mails and text messages to you to let you know that you have new messages. After the host confirms that they are available to host, please push the “Book now” button to confirm your booking. If the host did not confirm the dates of your visit, but asked another questions, you will still receive a notice to let you know that you have new messages. Before confirming the booking, the host and guest can send messages to each other as many times as they want. Sharing personal information such as contact details goes against our website policy. All bookings made outside of our website is not covered by us and we do not hold any responsibilities for them. Please be careful of hosts who ask for additional deposits other than the 15% deposit to us.
Confirm your booking
Once the host confirms that they are available on the dates you wish to travel, you can confirm the booking online by clicking the “Book now” button in the e-mail that we sent you. You can confirm the booking by submitting details about yourself and sending the 15% deposit money. By sending the 15% deposit, you are confirming the booking and we will follow up with your booking by sending you an e-mail that has the host’s e-mail address and other contact details.
Fly off to the homestay!
Please let the host know the approximate time of arrival. In order to verify you are the guest who has made to booking, please take a copy of your ID and a copy of the booking confirmation e-mail that we have send you.
Pay the remaining money to your host
You will pay the remaining homstay fee to your host according by the payment arrangements made earlier with the host. The booking confirmation e-mail has the money that you owe the host upon arrival. Please arrange how you are going to pay the rest of them money before arriving at the homestay. The host and guest should both be clear of how the remaining money is going to be paid before arrival. Please contact the host again if this is unclear or if you need more information.
Write a review of your stay
A few days after your homestay experience is over, we will send you an e-mail that includes a few simple questions about your stay. Your reviews are valuable to us to make improvements to our website. The host will receive a similar e-mail after the homestay is over and will be able to share their experience as a host. These reviews greatly help other guests to make choices in the future.
Host
Becoming a host on homestayin.com is free. Please check the following information to learn about the sign-up procedure, things to know, and the booking procedure. If you have further questions, please check our FAQ menu.
Read more about host
Sign up as a host
You need to take a few simple steps to become a host on our website. A few pictures to show your home and some descriptions of your home are all you need to sign up. You need to take 8 simple steps to finish your host profile: details of the host, location, services, room information and prices, uploading photos and others. Please input the information on each of the steps and click “Save” or “Next”. The account will not be made active until you submit all the necessary information and our website verifies the information.
Read more
Set a price
The price for the homestay is up to the host. You must state how much the room is per night. Weekly and monthly prices are optional. In case the guest wants to stay longer, it is recommended that you input special prices for weekly and monthly staying guests to make your homestay more appealing. Setting competitive prices will help you get more guests. Have a look at other hosts that are around your area and compare their prices in order to get a better understanding of the prices before you set your own. The prices can be changed at anytime during the year. The guest will pay a 15% deposit of the total homestay fee and will pay the remaining 85% to the host only after arrival. The host and guest will arrange how the remaining money will be paid to the host before arrival.
Descriptions
Please include an attention grabbing listing title and descriptions to your profile to attract potential guests. Including a catchy title and elaborate descriptions of your home will appeal to the host better.
Photos
To get bookings from guests, it is very important to include a number of high quality photos of your home. In order to be listed on our website as a host, you must upload 3 photos. 1) Upload a profile photo that shows your face 2) A photo that shows the exterior of your home 3) A photo that shows the room that the guest will be staying in. The photos should be well focused with good lighting and contrasting. The photos of the room that the guest will stay in should be to a quality that the guest can figure out how big the room is. Please upload a photo of yourself smiling as your profile photo. After uploading photos on your profile, you can edit and upload the photos as many times as you wish.
Activating the account
After reviewing the information that you have inputted, and have found that there are not any major errors, we will activate your account. If you need to fix any of the information that you have included, homestayin.com will contact you individually.
Homestay ranking
The ranking of your homestay listing will be determined by the quality of your profile. We recommend that you increase the quality of your profile to be listed higher in the listing. Other aspects that will determine your listing position will be the quality of your photos, your response rate and time to the guest’s messages, availability, and the number of past guests. It is also important to set a competitive price and keep your availability calendar up to date at all times.
Booking availability
Your listing number will be determined by taking into account your room availability from the point that the guest is trying to make a booking. Please update your availability calendar frequently for your guests to take interest in your profile.
Quality of the host
Hosts with high quality profiles will receive more bookings. Please upload photos that show the interior and exterior of your home well, and especially good photos of the room that the guest will stay in. If you include good descriptions to go with the photos, it will appeal to the guests even more. We recommend that you frequently update the information on your profile.
Response rate
How often the host responds to the guest’s messages is made into a percentage and included on the host’s profile page. Guests usually send messages more to hosts with higher response rates so it is important to respond to messages when they come.
Response time
How fast the hosts responds to the guest’s messages is also included on the host’s profile page. Guests prefer hosts that have a faster response time so we advise you to answer the guest’s questions as soon as possible. Usually, it is best to respond to guests within 24 hours.
Number of past guests
You are listed higher in the listing if you have successfully hosted a guest on a number of occasions. For this reason, it is better to increase the number of successful bookings even if the homestay period is short.
Room availability
Guests will send a message to the host to check whether they will be available on specific dates. By doing this, the guest can check the availability of the host once again, and also allow them to make bookings. If the host is available for booking on the dates that the guest has chosen, they will click the “Yes, I am available” button on the e-mail that we send them and confirm the booking.
Communication and connection
The host can contact the host through our safe messaging system and send each other secure messages. The host can easily communicate with the guest using this messaging system. The private information of the host will not be given to the guest until the booking is finished and secured. The personal information of the guest will be given to the host once the booking is confirmed through an e-mail by our system. Prior to making bookings, the guests are encouraged to send messages to the host to check the availability and ask any questions that they may have about the host. The host will receive e-mail and SMS notifications each time the guest sends a message. If the host wishes to confirm the booking or respond to the guest’s question, follow the link attached in the e-mail that our system sends. Sharing personal information before confirming the booking goes against our website policy. Any bookings made outside of homestayin.com will not be taken care of and held responsible by our website.
Booking
The guests will send 15% of the total homestay fee as a deposit to homestayin.com. The remaining 85% will be paid to the host directly by the guest. The guests must check whether the host is available for specific dates to host before making a booking. Every time a new booking is made, the host will receive an e-mail with the guest’s personal information. We advise that the host and guest communicates with each other before arrival and check things such as arrival time, check in time, payment methods for the remaining money. Once the booking is confirmed, the guest will receive the exact address of the host and the host’s contact details. This type of personal information is not shared within the website.
Host
When the guest arrives at your home, please welcome them with a warm smile. We recommend that you have welcoming conversation with the guest over a cup of tea.
Read more
Check in
Please communicate with the guest and find out the approximate time they will arrive at your home. It is recommended that you are at home to welcome the guest upon their arrival. If the guest has selected an airport pick-up service with you, please arrange this with them before they arrive.
House rules
To avoid confusion, please specify some house rules on your profile. For example, smoking rules, kitchen rules, safety rules, internet rules, bathroom rules and more.
Information about the area
Please update information that you would like to share with your guest. Put yourself in the guest’s shoes and think about what information will be good for your guest to know before they come. For example, information on public transportation, sight-seeing places, restaurants and cafes will be some things that you could share with them.
Reviews
Writing reviews after hosting guests will help us out greatly. Our website system will send you an e-mail with a few short questions about your hosting experience. Please share a little bit of your time and write about your experience! Your reviews will be helpful for us to provide better services. Guests will receive a similar e-mail from us after their stay, and we encourage them to write reviews about the host and their stay on the host’s profile. These reviews will help encourage potential guests to book your homestay more.