The Shift: Single product
selling –Product bundling
1. Introduction
What is product bundling? Product bundling means the practice of selling two or more products in a package which is widely used in the business world now. And it is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. There are two main types of bundling. Pure bundling occurs when a consumer can either purchase the entire bundle or nothing. Mixed bundling occurs when consumers are offered a choice between the purchasing the entire bundle or one of the separate parts of the bundle.
This strategy is very common in the software business (for example: bundle a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database into a single office suite), in the cable television industry (for example, basic cable in the United States generally offers many channels at one price), and in the tourism industry in which the package often includes of hotel booking, fly tickets booking and visa application are bundled together to sell to the customers.
Our group has taken the bundling of tourism industry products as our target to explain why globalization leads to this trend of product bundling. In the tourism industry, bundling package include airfare, accommodation, car rental services and relaxation activities. They are bulked together by tour operators and purchased by tourists at an all-inclusive price. A package is distinguished from the combination of fewer elements. Packaging normally refers to price bundling of tourism services and products. This is a central principle to develop and improve the quality of tourism services as well as to capture consumer surplus from an economic point of view. Price bundling is said to be a very significant tool for revenue maximization for a firm. The whole essence of a package holiday is bundling numerous separate services into one package. Why international tourism has become one of the most important aspects of tourism bundling? By referring to the theory of drivers of globalization, There are two factors underlie globalization, decline in barriers and technological change. Declining barriers refers not only to goods, but also to people. After the barriers being removed, it is easier for people to go abroad. And the technological change will also help international travelling by providing more efficient tools for transportation and communication.
2. History of tourism industry
In the past, the operation of tourism required a lot of resources and the purpose of tourism is always a single one such as for trade purpose, political purpose and so on.
2000 years Before Christ
In India and Mesopotamia, travel for trade was an important feature since the beginning of the civilization. The port at Lothal was an important centre of trade between the Indus valley civilization and the Sumerian civilization.
600 BC and thereafter
The earliest form of leisure tourism can be traced as far back as the Babylonian and Egyptian empires. A museum of historic antiquities was open to the public in Babylon. The Egyptians held many religious festivals that attracted the devout and many people thronged to cities to see famous works of arts and buildings.
In the Middle Ages
Travel became difficult and dangerous as people travelled for business or for a sense of obligation and duty.
Adventurers sought fame and fortune through travel. The Europeans tried to discover a sea route to India for trade purposes and in this fashion discovered America and explored parts of Africa. Strolling players and minstrels made their living by performing as they travelled. Missionaries, saints, etc. travelled to spread the sacred word.
In the Twentieth Century
The First World War gave first hand experience of countries and aroused a sense of curiosity about international travel among the less well off sector for the first time. The large scale of migration to the US meant a lot of travel across the Atlantic. Private motoring began to encourage domestic travel in Europe and the west. The sea side resort became annual family holiday destination in Britain and increased in popularity in other countries of the west. Hotels proliferated in these areas.
The birth of air travel and after
The wars aroused people’s interest in international travel. The interests’ combined with the modern aviation industry gave the shape of modern mass tourism. The surplus of aircrafts and growth of private airlines aided the expansion of air travel. The aircraft had become more comfortable, faster and steadily cheaper for overseas travel. With the introduction of Boeing 707 jet in 1958, the age of air travel for the masses had arrived. The beginning of chartered flights boosted the package tour market and led to the establishment of organised mass tourism. The Boeing 747, a 400 seat craft, brought the cost of travel down sharply. The seaside resorts in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Caribbean
And nowadays, tourism has becomes a multi-purpose event, people go to travel for business, leisure and intercultural communication on a usual bases. By referring to the theory of intercultural communication, intercultural communication which means "interaction between people whose cultural perceptions and symbolic system are distinct enough to alter communication event" is also included in international travel. Also, the cooperation of travel agents in different countries can reflect the trend of globalization. The interrelationships of marketsófinance, goods and servicesóand the networks created by transnational corporations are the most important manifestations of this. Though the capitalist world-system has been international in essence for centuries, the extent and degree of of trade and investment globalization has increased greatly in recent decades. (Chase-Dunn ,Kawano & Nikitin,2010)
3. Why bundling?
From a business perspective, the fundamental rationale for bundling is to increase the profit. Eakin and Faruqui (2000) stated that profit can be increased as a result of increasing customer benefit; greater efficiency in production and marketing; protecting and enhancing customer good will and strategic positioning. By bundling, the travel agency from different countries will cooperate to enhance the efficiency of operation and knowledge management is an important factor to consider. Managing the process of knowledge sharing in MNC´s is a highly complex and difficult but extremely
important management task. (Kasper & Haltmeyer, 2002)
For Demand Factors
Increasing demand happens when the benefits of bundling arises from complementarities of the product, the convenience and lower search cost of one-stop shopping, the introduction of new services and the perception of added value. If the two products are independent in demand and priced individually, some customers who would buy only one of products will now buy both products when bundling two products with a single price. In this regard, price bundling controls the demand arising from the sharing of the consumer surplus between the products.
For Cost factors
Economies of scale would be generated. The idea behind this case is that by bundling several products in a single unit and selling them together, firms can save costs resulting from separately producing and delivering several products.
Bundling enables economies of scale in either production or marketing efficiency. They also clarified that efficiency production results from economies of scale in production. This comes from similarities in the production process leading to common technical expertise, by products, and sharing of fixed costs across products. Marketing efficiencies arise from salesperson expertise across related products and from economies in the identification and targeting of customers. In addition, bundling the sale of products may add administrative and accounting simplicity.
For strategic reasons
Strategic motives of product bundling concerns the reduction of
competition by:
(1) Excluding of rivals through leveraging monopoly power between
the products
If monopolist firms bundle monopoly products with other products
and sell them with effective prices, then they could gain a
monopolistic edge over their competitors. When competitive
products are tied with monopoly product that can be sold below
marginal cost, monopolistic firms can sell these bundling products
with attractive prices so that can steal consumers from other firms in
competitive market.
(2) Product differentiation
There are more opportunities for differentiation with bundled goods
and service than with single products. In comparison with unbundled
products, bundle creates more difficulty for rivals who try to reach
successful market position over bundling firm because of the
complexity involved in getting a bundle of goods and services to the
market.
4. Relationship between globalization, international tourism and tourism product bundling
Internationalization is the process by which firms become involved
in serving markets outside their home country (Teare, Boer 1993).
Globalization can be defined as the highest development level
of internationalization.
Globalization has increased the interdependence between countries,
economies and people. It does not involve only giant corporations,
but also small and medium sized businesses together with family-run
firms (Klančnik 2003, 51). This process has led to the creation and
operation of global tourism market where destinations, which are
expected to compete on equal basis regardless of the country of
origin, function interactively. Globalization has opened a whole new
world of development opportunities. 715 million people traveled
abroad in the year 2002, by the year 2020 this number is expected
to increase to 1.6 billion. The tourism turnover is 3500 billion
US$ and accounts for 10 percent of global trade. Tourism has
become big business and is run by great trusts.
An important and visible dimension of growing globalization has
been the upsurge in international tourism in recent decades. This has
been a consequence of several factors. The factors include:
1. Rising populations with higher incomes;
2. More leisure-time;
3. Falling real cost of travel;
4. Reduced travel times;
5. Global media services that make individuals everywhere more aware of the outside world.
It can be argued that the upsurge in such travel is partly a
consequence of growing economic globalization and also a
contributor to it. Some circular causation is present.
Growth in International Tourism Globally
There has been an amazing expansion in international tourism in the
last half-century or so. Not only has the number of international
arrivals risen dramatically but even more significantly there has
been a tremendous rise in the percentage of international arrivals as
a percentage of world population. That is apparent from Table 1. In
1950 there were about 25 million such arrivals and in 2000, over
700 million. They were predicted to reach more that 1 billion by
2010. At the same time, the average relative frequency of
involvement of the world’s population in international travel has
shown a strong upward trend. It rose from just under one per cent in
1950 to over 11 per cent in 2000; a rise of 11 times its 1950 level.
Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that most of this travel is
accounted for by residents from income countries (Tisdell,
forthcoming a). Participation in international travel is geographically
very uneven and accounted mainly for by residents of higher income
nations.
Sources:
1. The World Development Indicators (WDI) Online (for world population), World Bank
2. The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) yearbooks, various years (for international arrivals)
Note: The figures for 2010 are projections by the WTO and World Bank
Note: The figures for 2010 are projections by the WTO and World Bank
Graph below shows the international arrivals as a percentage of
world population. It shows the strong upward trend in international
tourism in the modern era. Furthermore, it is distinctly noticeable
that this trend accelerated in the 1980s, and that the rate of increase
has been higher since economic globalization has accelerated.
Source: Table 1
Note: The figures for 2005 and 2010 are projections by the WTO and World Bank
However, an important component of international travel is travel
for business or professional purposes. Growing foreign direct
investment and greater international trade may be a long-term
stimulus to such traveling. Therefore, the acceleration in economic
globalization, which saw a very strong growth in the mid-1980s, may
have also played a role in the uplift in the international travel.
Another influence in the 1990s was the consequence of the demise
of centrally planned communist systems. The nations involved were
highly restrictive of their citizens travelling abroad and of inbound
travel. Most international travel of their citizens was restricted to the
Communist bloc and usually for professional or political purposes.
Restrictions on international travel have been much relaxed in these
former centrally planned economies since they have begun their
transition to market-led economies. China’s experience provides a
striking example of a change in the direction of its international
tourism policy (and tourism policy generally) following its decision
to embark its economic reforms.
Dramatic development of international tourism drives the demand
and supply of tourism bundling. For international tourists, they
demand bundling since the bundling service and bundling products
offer them more convenience. As new comers of a country, most
tourists have little knowledge about local customs and culture.
Although some of them may search information online before
traveling, they still feel unsecure or have no idea to implement their
original plan. In that case, bundling products that combine all
tourists’ wants and needs together will definitely be very popular in
the international market. That is why we see more international tour
package / bundling products that domestic ones. What’s more,
bundling products or services generally provide a more favorable
price than the sum of purchasing products one by one.
up bundling service to make themselves more competitive. For
example, selling of a single attraction may not be so attractive as
combination of more than one attraction in a comparatively low
price.
Meanwhile, tourism bundling and international tourism have largely
contributed to the globalization process. When they travel, the
culture exchange and sharing of local customs accelerate
globalization. Analysis of Global Target Group Index (TGI) data
confirms that, in most countries, regular international travelers
are more likely to buy foreign brands than their stay-at-home
peers (Hollis, 2009) All the exchange of culture, trade, business and
shopping abroad have benefited the development of global
economic, political and communication.
5. Real Case of tourism bundling: Zuji.com
In tourism industry, the product
bundling is diversified. A travel
package could include Airlines,
hotel, attraction tickets, insurance,
visa, catering, car rental, translation
service at the same time. And
followings are the examples of
Travel bundling.
bundling is diversified. A travel
package could include Airlines,
hotel, attraction tickets, insurance,
visa, catering, car rental, translation
service at the same time. And
followings are the examples of
Travel bundling.
ZUJI is an online travel agent dedicated to bring great value travel
choices to travelers in Asia Pacific. They provide more than 400
airlines, 60,000 hotels, and thousands of car-hire, activities,
attractions as well as travel insurance to travelers.
ZUJI teams are located throughout Asia Pacific, and ZUJI has a
network of online travel sites in Australia, New Zealand, Hong
Kong, India and Singapore.
1. Business partners:
The ZUJI partner network division allows third-party travel
suppliers, agents and web sites to harness the travel booking
functionality of ZUJI for flight, hotel, packages, activities and other
travel content and products.
ZUJI offers three key partner relationship options:
(1) ZUJI alliance/affiliate partner (Internet portal alliances)
(2) ZUJI private label partners (A ‘plug and play’ version of travel
search and booking technology for just hotels, or just flights or
customized alternatives)
(3) ZUJI network partner (full range of content and technology –
partnership to bring ZUJI branded travel portal to new countries
throughout Asia.)
The ZUJI network partners allow the other partners’ website to
feature ZUJI as a travel partner. This relationship will provide the
opportunity to earn a commission when referrals book travel. The
partners need to integrate products, promotions, feeds, and
marketing assets into Zuji’s type.
The private branded program enables partners to customize the look
and feel of their site using the Web's most powerful suite of online
booking products. Private branding, world class travel content,
bonus revenue streams, and industry-leading partner support make
Zuji the most trusted and profitable travel affiliate program me
available today. That's why Zuji is the partner of the choice for over
5,000 websites including major airlines, media portals and online
travel retailers across 40 countries.
Many airlines, for example, are very focused on their direct online
channels, but are looking for ways to offer their customers more
content, without having to source it, build it or manage it
themselves. ZUJI’s travel partner network relationships now offer a
wide range of options to third parties, which allow suppliers and
agents to either enhance their current site offering, or get online
without the start up costs for building an online presence from
scratch.”
ZUJI technology allows the search, booking, payment and e
ticketing online, and ZUJI manages the risk management elements of
the sale – in most key partner relationship options.
2. Localization of Zuji
Although Zuji is an international website in Asia-Pacific area, it has
a lot of activities focused on local distinctiveness and local customer
behaviors.
Hong Kong Disneyland Hotels and ZUJI sign Distribution
Agreement 2007. ZUJI, and Hong Kong Disneyland have entered
into a distribution agreement to market the resort’s hotel rooms
online via ZUJI sites in Asia Pacific.
Also, ZUJI launches Chinese New Year package deals.
To celebrate Chinese New Year, ZUJI has launched a selection of
special holiday offers. To meet the needs of the customer to go
travelling during the Chinese New Year vacation, ZUJI launched
several special packages to Chinese customers.
3. The globalization of ZUJI
At the same time, globalization also affects the platform itself. Travelocity took full ownership of Zuji to expand its network globally in year 2006.
As part of its global expansion, Travelocity has acquired complete ownership of Zuji, the leading online travel company in the Asia-Pacific region. According to an official release, Travelocity and its affiliates previously owned, directly and indirectly, approximately 13.63 percent of Zuji. In the transaction completed in Singapore, Travelocity purchased the remaining shares in Zuji from Abacus International Pte. Ltd. and AGC Holdings Ltd., a consortium of 15 airlines in the region, giving Travelocity ownership of 100 percent of Zuji. The purchase price was approximately US$34 million.
The purchasing behavior made changes to both Travelocity and Zuji.
For Travelocity:
1. Further enhance the online travel experience for customers in the Asia-Pacific region by delivering to Zuji’s more than one million members the best of Travelocity’s and Sabre Holdings’ travel and technology expertise;
2. Offer even greater opportunities for suppliers to reach customers worldwide;
3. Leverage Zuji’s relationships to the advantage of consumers by offering more and better content and deals, and to the advantage of partners and suppliers via seamless technology integration and increased scale;
For Zuji:
2. Enhance Zuji’s growth by capturing all of the benefits of Travelocity’s industry-leading capabilities, including dynamic packaging, its advanced net rate hotel program and revolutionary site;
3. Expand Zuji/Travelocity’s presence into China and India.
Through the bundling travel platforms, the globalization of tourism has been developed and deepened. We believe that after more and more mergers and acquisitions, the market will become more mature and structured.
6. Benefits of product bundling in tourism industry:
To customers:
(1) Easier procedures
In the past, most of them have to search information in different providers. For one trip, the travelers had to book the air tickets or train tickets, accommodation, car rental and translators. With the product bundling of tourism products, customers could just need to search for the most creditable package providers and get all the information in one time. Just like in the example of ZUJI, the customers can get all the things they need on one websites by clicking several buttons.
(2) Lower price
At the same time, the lower price is also a huge benefit to customers. Bundling two or more services together from the same company means more incentives. The travel packages always provide more values or have a really competitive price to attract customers.
(3) Less uncertainty
Bundling tends to favor the seller in many ways:
1. There is the simplicity of a single priced product. If they can sell the same bundle to everyone, it makes life easier, which usually means lower marketing and selling costs.
If the travelers go abroad, then they have to deal with the culture differences and the language differences. The travel bundling could provide a series of services to reduce the uncertainty customers may face during travels.
In addition, the products with the brand name can always provide a guarantee of service quality. Bundling with a brand can provide a better promise. And if customers have any problems, they could just complain to one provider instead of going to different places.
In addition, the products with the brand name can always provide a guarantee of service quality. Bundling with a brand can provide a better promise. And if customers have any problems, they could just complain to one provider instead of going to different places.
To Business:
Bundling tends to favor the seller in many ways:
1. There is the simplicity of a single priced product. If they can sell the same bundle to everyone, it makes life easier, which usually means lower marketing and selling costs.
2. Bundling can speed up the execution process and selling a greater volume of goods overall. The bundling in tourism can help to promote non-popular products by combining them with the other popular services. Also, selling one package needs fewer resources and costs than selling several products separately, such as human resources, information resources, etc.
3. Bundling could help travel providers get more customers who they could not reach before. For example, hostels in Europe could not reach the Chinese tourists before Zuji.com, but now they could interact with target customers easily on the platform. The total target customer group is growing bigger and bigger.
3. Bundling could help travel providers get more customers who they could not reach before. For example, hostels in Europe could not reach the Chinese tourists before Zuji.com, but now they could interact with target customers easily on the platform. The total target customer group is growing bigger and bigger.
4. From a social perspective, price bundling strategies are important for stabilizing a market. Without price bundling, equilibrium will not exist. Whenever each firm either sets prices for its two products and/or offers to sell them as a bundle at a lower price, consumers can observe the prices and make their consumption selections.
(1) Failure in communication
7. Risks of product bundling in tourism industry:
Since the bundling in tourism industry always needs to cross the culture borders, most of the time, they need to use virtual organization to work together. Therefore, there are a lot of potential risks in communication. “Not surprisingly, several studies have found that collaboration across distance is more difficult than in a collocated environment. Potential issues include difficulties in communication and coordination, reduced trust, and an increased inability to establish a common ground.”( Siebdrat, Hoegl, Ernst,2009)
The lack of communication may lead to poor services or products to customers, which directly causes the dissatisfaction and affects the business.
(2) More responsibility
Use the video of “United Breaks Guitar” as example.
From this video, we could see the anger of the singer to American Airline. Since more and more bundling services are provided in travel industry, not only the company who provide the service will be complained about, but also those bundles providers, like ZUJI.com. The behavior will affect the reputation of the bundle providers directly. “Reputational troubles can come in many forms, from a wide variety of causes and from many publics…. Organizations must recognize the “what” of the issue generating the reputational threats, as well as “who” the involved public(s) is/are.” (Greyser, 2009)
The providers will suffer the reputational troubles because of the product failures. Just as mentioned before, the providers will lose the trust and faith only by one mistake of others or partners. Since the travel operators will provide a whole package as a product, every single service or product failed in the package will lead to the dissatisfaction of the whole package. Therefore, the travel operators need to take more responsibilities when they sell packages.
(2) More responsibility
From this video, we could see the anger of the singer to American Airline. Since more and more bundling services are provided in travel industry, not only the company who provide the service will be complained about, but also those bundles providers, like ZUJI.com. The behavior will affect the reputation of the bundle providers directly. “Reputational troubles can come in many forms, from a wide variety of causes and from many publics…. Organizations must recognize the “what” of the issue generating the reputational threats, as well as “who” the involved public(s) is/are.” (Greyser, 2009)
The providers will suffer the reputational troubles because of the product failures. Just as mentioned before, the providers will lose the trust and faith only by one mistake of others or partners. Since the travel operators will provide a whole package as a product, every single service or product failed in the package will lead to the dissatisfaction of the whole package. Therefore, the travel operators need to take more responsibilities when they sell packages.
(3) More potential crisis will affect the travel operators
Tourism is closely related to policies and the relationships with government. Bundling in tourism industry also needs to handle the local environment problems. The travel operators do not only need to corporate with the local attractions, car rental, hotel—those travel service providers, but also need to learn how to deal with the crisis that may occur during the travels.
Last year, a group of Hong Kong tourists were kidnapped in Philippines. Eight of the hostages were killed in the bloody siege, which ended with several survivors crawling from the bus while emergency crews removed bodies. A former policeman armed with an assault rifle had seized the bus in an apparent attempt to get his job back. Hong Kong's government has criticised the handling of the siege. In all, 22 Hong Kong tourists were taken hostage along with three Filipinos - a driver, a guide and a photographer.
HK issues travel ban to RP after hostage crisis. In an outbound travel alert, the Security Bureau, changed its “amber alert warning" - meaning there were signs of threat - for the Philippines to a “black alert warning" indicating severe threats on the country’s security.
Hong Kong travel agency sent a chartered plane to Manila to bring back tourists. Aboard the chartered plane were representatives from the Security Bureau of the Hong Kong government, Department of Immigration and Hong Thai travel agency as well as medics and psychologists.
With the development of the bundling service, the travel operators need to be concern every detail during the travel and predict the potential risks in organizing a bundle. “Philippines hostage” is just an example to show how travel operators need to be prepared to solve the crisis.
HK issues travel ban to RP after hostage crisis. In an outbound travel alert, the Security Bureau, changed its “amber alert warning" - meaning there were signs of threat - for the Philippines to a “black alert warning" indicating severe threats on the country’s security.
What the travel operator did during the crisis?
Hong Kong travel agency sent a chartered plane to Manila to bring back tourists. Aboard the chartered plane were representatives from the Security Bureau of the Hong Kong government, Department of Immigration and Hong Thai travel agency as well as medics and psychologists.
With the development of the bundling service, the travel operators need to be concern every detail during the travel and predict the potential risks in organizing a bundle. “Philippines hostage” is just an example to show how travel operators need to be prepared to solve the crisis.
8. Tourism Bundling Management
Source: Tourism and Hospitality Management
Source: Tourism and Hospitality Management
9. Future trends:
(1)More diverse bundling:
(1)More diverse bundling:
1) Simplify the package, eliminate some unnecessary items in a package.
In order to attract customers who prefer to have freedom and flexibility on the travel plan. Some bundling will be simplified to reduce complexity. For example, as the popularization of language, the bundling may eliminate translator service.
2) Business travel, trade travel a Adventure bundling
In the past, people mainly travel for business or trade. Sometimes, the travel was just a part of their business trip plan. Nowadays, people who go for travel have more other purpose orientation. For example, research indicates that more and more people now are fond of adventure bundling or charity vacation bundling, volunteer trip vacation and so on.
For example, Chen Guangbiao’s Taiwan trip is a famous charity vacation. After finishing his philanthropy in four cities, Chen Guangbiao headed to other famous attractions in Taipei.
For example, Chen Guangbiao’s Taiwan trip is a famous charity vacation. After finishing his philanthropy in four cities, Chen Guangbiao headed to other famous attractions in Taipei.
3) Ecotourism/ Geotourism
As people now are more concerned about the environment and protection of natural sights, the ecotourism and geotrousim has been a popular way of travel that combine tour with environment protection together. The picture in the right side is called "Gifts From the Heavens and Sea in Quebec".
Corporate social responsibility is the commitment of businesses to contribute to sustainable economic development by working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their lives in ways that are good for business and for development. (Cavett-Goodwin, 2007) According to the theory of “Corporate social responsibility”, when companies become more socially responsible, it will be more attractive to investors and consumers.
As the bundling tourism products and/or services now are open to mass market, they may not cater to individual customer’s need. For the elder tourists, they will purchase the package design by travel agency without much hesitation. However, for the younger generation, they prefer to have their own design and control on their own tour plan. Therefore, in order to cater more and more young tourists’ preference, many tourism suppliers try to customize the products / services according to small group of tourists’ needs. Even some websites or travel agencies will ask tourists themselves to fill in the detail requirement and try to fulfill customers’ needs by calling in customers with almost the same requirement.
Corporate social responsibility is the commitment of businesses to contribute to sustainable economic development by working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their lives in ways that are good for business and for development. (Cavett-Goodwin, 2007) According to the theory of “Corporate social responsibility”, when companies become more socially responsible, it will be more attractive to investors and consumers.
(2) Customized bundling: |
communities they visit. For example, if you want to visit Barcelona and you don’t want to live in too expensive hotel or too annoyed hostel, at the same time, you want to have someone who knows well about Barcelona to guide you for the tour, then Couchsurfing may be a perfect choice for you. It is more customized choice and quite new. Since 2004, members have been using Couchsurfing system to go together for cultural exchange, friendship, and learning experiences. Today, over a million people who might otherwise never meet are able to share hospitality and cultural understanding.
CouchSurfing members share hospitality with one another. It is a unique and rich form of cultural interaction. Hosts have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world without leaving their home. "Surfers," or travelers, are able to participate in the local life of the places they visit. They also give more people the chance to become travelers, because "surfing" lowers the financial cost of exploration.
The CouchSurfing community continues to expand its horizons. Members are always finding more ways to connect and learn from each other. Every day, people across the world share coffee, camping trips, meetings, language exchanges, discussions and all sorts of other experiences.
Now more and more communities doing the similar things, for instance:
1) HOSPITALITY CLUB
(http://www.hospitalityclub.org/)
2)SERVAS
(http://joomla.servas.org/)
3) GLOBAL FREELOADERS
(http://www.globalfreeloaders.com)
(http://joomla.servas.org/)
3) GLOBAL FREELOADERS
(http://www.globalfreeloaders.com)
4) ORGANIC VOLUNTEERS
(http://www.organicvolunteers.com)
5) HOUSE CARERS
(http://www.housecarers.com/)
6) WOOFING
(http://wwoof.org)
(http://www.organicvolunteers.com)
5) HOUSE CARERS
(http://www.housecarers.com/)
6) WOOFING
(http://wwoof.org)
WWOOF is an acronym for a number of different phrases, the most apt of which in my mind is “World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms”. It is an international organization (located in over 70 countries) of organic farms, gardens, businesses, ranches, (you name it) where you can exchange your services for accommodations, food, and training.It is a Bundling of ecotourism and Couchsurfing.
7) CARETAKER’S GAZETTE
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