Couchsurfing Cosmopolitanisms: Can Tourism Make a Better World? (Culture and Social Practice) - Softcover

"The various experiences as hosts and guests plus nine different writing styles make the book a varied reading. Following the authors experiences, the results of their studies are sometimes presented as interested facts nearby; hence it is not like reading an academic paper but fun and informative. Moreover it makes the book accessible for a broader audience and allows an ongoing exchange between academic and current discussions." -- Paula Salomo, www.urbanophil.net, 08.08.2013 "Being skillfully written, making use of a narrative approach, and enriched by exciting and originial chapters 'Couchsurfing Cosmopolitanism' is a recommanded read for those who are eager to delve deeper and better understand the phenomenon of promoting cosmopolitanism as a desire for and openess to difference." -- Variety Fair, 7 (2014)

The book provides unique insights into the culture of computer-mediated hospitality and how this has begun to transform contemporary tourism and travel practice. Focusing on Couchsurfing.org, one of the largest online hospitality communities world-wide, the authors explore how social relations, intimacy and trust are built in the online environment and then extended into the offline contexts of actual tourism and travel. Being active couchsurfers themselves, the authors scrutinise the candid claim by much of the online hospitality community that couchsurfing creates a "better world". The book is key reading for anyone interested in how computer mediated communication is changing contemporary forms of contact, travel and hospitality, and the kinds of cosmopolitism it brings into being. Authors: David Picard, Sonja Buchberger, Jennie Germann Molz, Dennis Zuev, De-Jung Chen, Bernard Scheou, Jun-E Tan, Paula Bialski and Nelson Graburn.