Gay Homestays
Gay Homestays is a peer-to-peer property rental company established in June 2010 by Pink Bookings Ltd, with focus on the LGBT community.
Gay Homestays website allows LGBT travellers, or “guests”, the opportunity to stay in private accommodation let by LGBT or LGBT-friendly people who are referred to as “hosts”. Hosts can rent out their unoccupied spare room or whole property on a short-term basis. Gay Homestays’ says its vision is "to develop a global private accommodation network, providing LGBT travellers with safe, friendly and affordable accommodation as an alternative to hotels or straight owned B&Bs", and was one of the first companies to be aimed at LGBT travellers.
History
Gay Homestays' founder, Dave Chambers, lived in Barcelona between 2006 and 2010 where he set up a small gay B&B. His idea for Gay Homestays came from having discussions with his guests who had become disillusioned with over-priced and impersonal hotels. He started building the site in Spain but then moved back to the UK in June 2010 and set up the company Pink Bookings Ltd.
Growth and international expansion
Gay Homestays is currently in its third year of trading and as of March 2013, the company has property listings in more than 250 cities in over 70 countries worldwide. Its most popular destinations and those with the highest number of accommodations are London, Barcelona, Rome and Paris. The company has recently expanded further into North and South America, Australasia, South Africa and some parts of Asia.
Though Gay Homestays’ headquarters is in central Manchester, UK, it also has employees based in Spain and Australia. The company is a registered member of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) as well as Gay and Lesbian Tourism Australia (GALTA).
In New Zealand a collection of gay and lesbian owned and operated homestays/B&Bs from all over the country can be found on the gaystay.co.nz website.
Reception
Gay Homestays has received coverage from various LGBT media outlets, including news sites Gay Star News and The Seattle Lesbian, online magazine So So Gay, as well as Attitude magazine. The company has been praised for redefining gay travel and offering an alternative option to the gay community.
Several stories highlighting homophobia experienced by gay travellers, particularly when couples who desire to share a double room are turned away by B&Bs owned by religious families, caused legal controversies that the national media picked up on