Couchsurfing Cosmopolitanisms

de David Picard, Sonja Buchberger

This book provides unique insights into the culture of computer-mediated hospitality platforms and how these platforms transform contemporary tourism and travel practice. Through their focus on ¿Couchsurfing±, the most successful online hospitality community throughout the world, the authors explore how social relations, intimacy and trust are established in the online environment, and how these parameters generate sociability in the face-to-face realms of current tourism and travel. Through a series of case studies, the authors examine the potentials of the ¿Couchsurfing± project to put the ideals of cosmopolitan hospitality into action--