Warm Showers
Type of business | 501(c)(3) organization non-profit organization |
---|---|
Area served | Global |
Owner | Warmshowers.org Foundation (as on the website); WARMSHOWERS ORG (as filed in the IRS form) |
Founder(s) | Terry Zmrhal Geoff Cashmen |
Key people | Tahverlee Anglen (Corporate Cause Agency), management services Seth Portner, former executive director Lance Bickford, Chairperson Chris Russo, former Director Cyril Wendl, former Director Russel Workman, former Director Stephanie Verwys, Director Jack Turner, Director Bruce Squire, Director Donna Price, Director Rich Hoeg, Director Lance Bickford, Director Remi Laurant, Director |
Products | Homestay |
Services | Social networking service, Communication |
URL | www |
Users | 153,088 members, including 93,542 hosts (As of 25 April 2020[update]) |
Launched | 1993 |
[1][2][3][4] |
Part of a series on |
Homestays |
---|
Hospitality exchange services |
Hospitality for work |
Hospitality for money |
Home exchange |
Others |
Warm Showers (WS) is a non-profit hospitality exchange service, social networking service, and support network[5] for people engaging in bicycle touring.[6][7][8][9][10] The platform is a gift economy — hosts are not supposed to charge for lodging and are not bound.[10][11][12][13][14][15] The platform is accessible via a mobile app and a website based on Drupal software.[16] The website is hosted by Skvare, LLC, a web hosting service.[17][18] The company is a Colorado 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, USA.[2]
The organization received donations of $100,641 in 2015, $84,009 in 2016, $115,324 in 2017, $128,626 in 2018 and $111,089 in 2019.[2][4]
History[edit]
A Canadian couple, Terry Zmrhal and Geoff Cashmen, founded Warm Showers in 1993.[19][20] They created a database from the existing members of biking-hospitality organizations.
In 1996, Roger Gravel became responsible for the platform.[21]
In 2005, Randy Fay created the website based on the existing database.[19]
On November 15, 2009, the platform became open-source software. It has had 15 contributors and 7 releases since then.[16]
On January 22, 2012, open source development of the mobile app for Android started and has had 11 contributors.[22]
Randy Fay is listed as the developer with the most commits for both, website and Android app.
On October 7, 2012, open source development of the mobile app for iOS started and has had 2 contributors.[23]
In 2016, Seth Portner was its executive director, its board chair was Cyril Wendl, its treasurer was Len Bulmer and board members were Russel Workman, Stephanie Verwys, and Ken Francis.[1]
In 2017, Seth Portner was its executive director, its board chair was Len Bulmer and board members were Cyril Wendl, Russel Workman, Stephanie Verwys, Ken Francis, Jack Turner, and Bruce Squire.[2]
In 2018, Seth Portner was its executive director, Tahverlee Anglen provided management services, its board chair was Len Bulmer and board members were Stephanie Verwys, Ken Francis, Bruce Squire, Donna Price, Rich Hoeg, Lance Bickford, Remi Laurant, Stephanie Kavrakis.[3]
In 2019, Tahverlee Anglen provided management services, its board chair was Len Bulmer and board members were Stephanie Verwys, Ken Francis, Bruce Squire, Donna Price, Rich Hoeg, Lance Bickford, Remi Laurant, and Stephanie Kavrakis.[4]
Membership statistics[edit]
Date | Members | Ref |
---|---|---|
April 2009 | 7,500 members | [24] |
August 2014 | 50,000 members | [21] |
April 2017 | 89,000; including 39,000 hosts | [12] |
April 2018 | 85,000 members | [11] |
April 2021 | 161,000 members; including 104,000 hosts in 161 countries | [25] |
Homestay requests[edit]
Warm Showers grants trustworthy teams of scientists access to its anonymized data for publication of insights to the benefit of humanity. In 2015, an analysis of 97,915 homestay requests from BeWelcome and 285,444 homestay requests from Warm Showers showed general regularity — the less time is spent on writing a homestay request, the lower is the probability of success. Since both networks are shaped by altruism, low-effort communication, aka 'copy and paste requests', evidently sends the wrong signal.[26]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "WARMSHOWERS ORG" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2016. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ a b c d "WARMSHOWERS ORG" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2017.
- ^ a b "WARMSHOWERS ORG" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ a b c "WARMSHOWERS ORG" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
- ^ Pendak, Jared (June 28, 2018). "Tunbridge's Edwards Lives to Cycle". Valley News.
- ^ Beierle, Heidi (May 12, 2011). "Bicycle Tourism as a Rural Economic Development Vehicle" (PDF). University of Oregon.
- ^ Ferreira, Pedro; Helms, Karey; Brown, Barry; Lampinen, Airi (2019). "From Nomadic Work to Nomadic Leisure Practice: A Study of Long-term Bike Touring". ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 3. doi:10.1145/3359213.
- ^ Reader, Lesley; Ridout, Lucy. The Rough Guide to First-Time Asia. Rough Guides.
- ^ Higgins, Brian (October 3, 2018). "Why this man is letting cycling tourists stay at his house for free". CBC News.
- ^ a b Kopnina, Helen (September 20, 2014). "Sustainability in environmental education: new strategic thinking". Environment, Development and Sustainability. 17 (5): 987–1002. doi:10.1007/s10668-014-9584-z. S2CID 154969254.
- ^ a b Cunningham, Joshua (April 24, 2018). "Warmshowers: why free hospitality for bike tourists is a priceless experience". The Guardian.
- ^ a b "For Road-Weary Cyclists, a Room, a Couch, Maybe Even a Meal". The New York Times. April 25, 2017.
- ^ Milyko, Jennifer (August 29, 2013). "Bicycle Travel Etiquette: Warmshowers or Couchsurfing?". Adventure Cycling Association.
- ^ Scotsman, The (December 1, 2019). "Edinburgh cyclists who up and left jobs to travel on their bikes reach half way point around the world in just six months". The Scotsman.
- ^ "Bike Touring 101: The Simple, Achievable Joys of Touring America on Two Wheels". insidehook.com. 2019.
- ^ a b "Github: warmshowers.org". GitHub.
- ^ "Skvare, LLC". skvare.com.
- ^ "IP Trace". accessify.com.
- ^ a b Tilton, Benjamin (May 2, 2019). "Before You Hit the Open Road: Warmshowers Has an Overnight Solution for Touring Cyclists and Story-making". SLUG Magazine.
- ^ D'Ambrosio, Dan (March 1, 2018). "HEY buddy, CAN YOU SPARE A WARM SHOWER?" (PDF). Adventure Cycling Association.
- ^ a b Meyers, Drew (August 21, 2014). "A Little History of Modern Hospitality Networks". horizonapp.co.
- ^ "WarmShowers for Android". GitHub.
- ^ "Warmshowers iPhone/iPad App". GitHub.
- ^ Fay, Randy (April 30, 2009). "Internationalization and Localization of Warmshowers.org". randyfay.com.
- ^ Germany, reisereporter, Hannover, Niedersachsen. "Legale Alternativen zum Wildcamping in Deutschland". reisereporter (in German). Retrieved 27 April 2021.
- ^ Tagiew, Rustam; Ignatov, Dmitry I.; Delhibabu, Radhakrishnan (2015). Economics of Internet-Based Hospitality Exchange. (IEEE/WIC/ACM) International Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT). Singapore. pp. 493–498. arXiv:1501.06941. doi:10.1109/WI-IAT.2015.89.