READY FOR CHANGE! – EVERYTHING NEW?
Wow – so much has changed here at socialbnb. We think that’s a good thing. Because for us it’s clear – we are ready to change tourism! And we need your help!
Read more about what has changed for us in this blog post!
WE ARE LIVE!
We are incredibly happy to finally present you our new platform. Over the past few months, a lot of great people have worked to improve your booking experience. You can book accommodations from a social or ecological project on the new socialbnb platform. On the profile, you will find all the information about the respective accommodation and what there is to experience on-site. Under project details, you can find out more about the project which is supported by your overnight stay. The new filter function offers you the possibility to filter by project type, price, and location, but also according to additional features such as vegan cuisine, accessibility, or other activities.
In addition, there is the fully automated booking process, which should process bookings faster and better than it was before.
In addition, our partner projects now have the opportunity to create and update their profiles themselves. This enables us to keep the information up to date at all times. You can write your questions in advance in the chat function when making a booking request and thus contact your host in advance.
Do you have feedback or ideas for functions that should be added? Send us a message by email or Instagram. We look forward to your feedback!
SUPPORT FROM HOME
The donate button is also new. For some projects you will find this button: “Support from home” under the respective profile: This allows you to donate if a booking is currently not possible or you do not want to or cannot travel so far.
NEW DESIGN
You have probably already noticed the completely new design. After the redesign of our logo, we took the next step and completely revised our corporate identity with a new visual language and new colors. You’ll also find lots of self-drawn icons and animations. We love it! How about you?
NEW DESTINATIONS
Over the past year, our team has been working tirelessly to find new great projects to support our platform. In the process, we’ve grown to over 180 projects in 45 countries. We believe that sustainable tourism can and should be implemented anywhere in the world, so a global focus is very important to us. In recent months, we have increasingly added projects from Europe, because there are also great ideas here that we can support with our concept. In the course of this, social businesses, community-based organizations and ecological farm stays have become part of socialbnb in addition to NGO projects.
NEW SELECTION PROCESS
It is very important to us that every overnight stay has a positive impact on the ground. Therefore, we work very hard to validate whether our concept can lead to such an impact on the ground. Therefore, we have revised our quality criteria in cooperation with various universities, such as the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences or the University of Cologne, and associations such as Ecpat e.V., GIZ and ProWildlife. Each project on socialbnb is checked in a personal selection process before a listing.
For example, we validate to what extent the project involves local people, what the impact on the environment is and whether the project leads to the self-determination of individuals. In addition, numerous protection aspects are checked, both for the protection of the local population and travelers. We pay special attention to guidelines on child protection, animal welfare and environmental protection, depending on the work of the project.
This also includes a detailed consultation of projects that have not yet gained much experience in tourism. How this process works exactly we will present to you in more detail in an upcoming article.
DEVELOPMENT TO A SOCIAL BUSINESS
Started as a student project of the association Enactus an der Univerisät zu Köln e.V we are now an independent social startup and have recently officially founded socialbnb as a GmbH. We are very happy to have already achieved so much together and to be able to continue building socialbnb as a sustainable and impact-oriented company.
NEW TOURISM?
Of course! The possibility to travel is coming back piece by piece for some people. We should use this long break for a change. That is why we need to start now, even if it is not yet possible to visit all destinations again.
Because the tourism of the future can be a force for good if we do it right. Let’s tackle it together and go on this long journey! Are you ready for change?
By Alexander Haufschild