The next Airbnb for WOMEN!

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As a solo female traveler, I know first hand the uncomfortable experiences that often come from using sites like Airbnb or Couchsurfing, and how difficult it can be to find female hosts/guests. I am starting a travel app for women that will feature the same home sharing rental options like airbnb but for women. We need female hosts to list their properties. For a limited time offer there were be no transaction fees. Please sign up at Bungee Girl (dot) com

NO disrespect to the men in these forums at all so pleaseeeeee don’t be offended. However, my goal is to empower women through travel and help them get out of their comfort zone and into situations that bring deep personal growth. Making travel safer and more accessible including comfortable and affordable accommodations for women is definitely a step in the right direction. Many women would feel much more comfortable with female only host/guest situations and more be inclined to travel more frequently and alone (which is such an empowering experience) if these options were more readily available.

Please sign up so you can find out soon when you can list your places if you’re in one of our featured cities! Bungee Girl (dot) com

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Would your women feel comfortable to stay with a gay couple?

And can I as a man also use your app to travel safely? Or would that put the female hosts in “danger”?
My last time in Cuzco, the man from the reception started making sexual advances to me inside my room. Therefor, I would also like to travel safely with hosts that won’t try to assault me.

I’m looking forward to the reactions to your app by other forum members :relaxed:.

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Hi @Maxine_Outerbridge, I just thought some constructive feedback might be helpful in your plight.

You are completely contradicting yourself in what you say. Are you trying to offer places where women feel comfortable, or are you trying to empower women by getting them “out of their comfort zone”?

I actually like your idea, but when you’re marketing it you should focus on one or the other. I would suggest that offering comfortable accommodation for women traveling alone would be more appealing to me if I were traveling alone, than someone trying to get me out of my comfort zone.

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Hello
I have a male co-host (my partner), just curious if I would be allowed to join? Or is this just for single/all woman households?

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Great idea. Airbnb for pets, women, black people, LGBTQs, ares some of niches that definitely have growth opportunity.

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Presumably you include all those who identify as women?

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Thanks so much! really appreciate your feedback. also apologies let me clarify, when i say helping women get out of their comfort zone i do not mean specifically the “airbnb portion”, i mean that as a whole mission. The app started out as just a social network to connect solo female travelers with the hopes of making more women feel comfortable traveling alone (which is the “getting out of their comfort zone”) if they made the right connections with like-minded locals or other travel women. All of our messaging (social media, blogs, within the app) is meant to encourage women to explore. Hope that helps to clear up what i meant. Really appreciate the feedback

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Absolutely!!! That’s exactly our position

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Thanks so much for your feedback :slight_smile:

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That’s a great question and i’m happy i posted this because the questions/feedback has been really helpful. The intention was to be “female household/host” however I think adding a field to indicate if there are any other persons in the household and their gender should be sufficient for the guest to decide further. Thanks for your comment

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Curious…how do you feel about Hostel’s that have Female Only dorms/floors. I just went to one in Iceland that had separate floors for women and Men wouldn’t be allowed on those floors (There was gate entrance on the stairway that required key access as well as key access to access the floor in the elevator). There are many hostels that do this throughout the world. Do yo understand why they do that? Why their female guests feel they need this isolation and protection? What are your thoughts on that? I guess we could make the same comment about bathrooms and locker rooms being separated by gender. For those same reasons, many women would also like to have the option to stay with and be hosted by women host as well. I’d be happy to go through more detail the justification but curious if you thought already in life how much this is applied to and adhered to

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@Maxine_Outerbridge

  1. What fees will you be charging hosts? What are you charging guests?
  2. How will payment work
  3. What sort of marketing investment and approach will you be taking to promote the app to female travellers. For example how are you reaching women travellers visiting England?
  4. Is it be rolled out globally or area by area
  5. Do you offer a host guarantee if things go wrong
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I am opposed to your idea as for me, I don’t feel threatened by men in general and have met many women who are just as unpleasant as a leering male host might be. I also have a son and don’t think it’s helpful to perpetuate men as a threat to women and that it is women that need to manage this by isolating ourselves. Men’s violence is best addressed by other men and society confronting it. I’ve not heard any horror stories of a culture of Airbnb hosts exploiting women, and a predator would just use a fake profile on any site anyway.

However, there is a market for everything and for others it may suit them so I wish you success with your business.

I have had a look at your website though and it doesn’t appear what is advertised here, it’s seems to be stating it’s a mutual swap service???eg’ You’ll have an equal interest in visiting each other’s city so exchange trip tips and ideas.’

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Sounds good. We’re at the moment writing an article about different concepts similar to Airbnb. If you’d like to feature your site in this article or on our blog, drop me a line

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From your facebook page, it looks more like a way for women to connect with other women while traveling, and even a visit to your website did not provide me with any way to sign up as a host.

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I guess they also would have ‘males only’ dorms and not only ‘females only’ dorms. I suppose the reason would be that some ‘people’ wouldn’t like to sleep close to someone of the other sex. Why ‘people’ would feel like that is to be discussed. That discussion should start anytime soon in this topic :wink:.

Your idea boils downs to this thought: “Some females feel uncomfortable being alone in one room together with men who are sexually attracted to them.” I just extended that thought to males and LGBT+.
Because continuing your logic:

  • Maybe females (S or LGBT+) should also worry about sharing a space with lesbian or bisexual women, or straight.
  • Maybe males (S or LGBT+) should also worry about sharing a space with gay or bisexual men, or straight.
  • Maybe people who are at risk of dying should also worry about sharing a space with necro… :rofl: Never mind.

You get my point, there is lots to feel and lots to worry about. If we have to segregate each and everyone in his own little box, there will be lots of boxes.

Of course since these feelings exist, hostels will cater to them. Wether this helps to empower anyone is another matter of course.

I understand :thinking: your point of view. But why wouldn’t this apply to males or LGBT+?

So continuing my logic, as explained above, I asked you two questions that you didn’t answer:

I asked this question because apparently some women prefer to travel with MisterBnB for security reasons. And we (gay couple) love :heart_eyes: having single women over.

I asked this question because of my own experience I know that men can also get into unpleasant situations when traveling.

Now continuing with your and my logic :face_with_monocle::nerd_face::thinking::exploding_head::smiley::sunglasses:, maybe you should design an app where hosts and guests would fully disclose their sexual preferences :scream:, so a ‘safe’:innocent: match can be made. However, be sure to test :crazy_face: whatever sexual preference they declare, to prevent any false declarations.

And now seriously: I think within the home sharing world AirbnB, with it’s scale, experience and review system, is the best option in maximizing the probability of a safe stay for everyone.
I wish you lots of success with your venture, and I hope you will also think about securing safety, not only for females (S / LGBT+), but also for males (S /LGBT+) and other living creatures.

@Jan_J We know :grin:. Some gays will explicitly feel uncomfortable using this app for the reason that some host/guests might expect a “home sharing PLUS” experience. We have had gay men chose us as a couple’s listing, because they felt that would lower the risk of sexual proposals. When I wasn’t around my hubby has experienced awkward moments with a gay guest from that app.

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So you’re planning to help women get out of their comfort zone by building an app that lets them stay in their comfort zone.

(Let’s say) I’m a bisexual person who needs this isolation and protection from men and women, as either can create sexual issues in my case. What sort of app would you recommend for me per your philosophy?

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There are lots of women who feel vulnerable when they travel. There has long been a group for women who camp and travel with travel trailers - Sisters on the Fly. Especially if you’re camping in rural America, and gay, although that’s not a requirement, you are a target, sad to say.

Google women camping and you will see how many there are. It makes sense to have a peer-to-peer platform for that. I am listed on misterbnb, too.

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Thank you! I am a male host, married with two young daughters. My listing is a whole apartment rental; I do not live on site and would never dream of entering the premises when guests were there. I’m insulted to think that someone would feel uncomfortable booking my place simply because I’m a man. It’s the exact same stereotyping that the Airbnb community works so hard to overcome. Would it be okay if someone wanted to stay with a host who was the same race as them, or didn’t want to stay with an LGBT host? No!

And besides, I don’t see what you offer that Airbnb doesn’t. If a solo woman traveler wants to stay with a female host she already has that option.

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Hi Emily. Thanks for your feedback, In no way did i insinuate men were a threat. It is simply a preference. Again, just as it isn’t considered offensive for men and women to have separate bathrooms and for a women to not want to go to a public bathroom with a man in it, it is the same concept for some women who simply choose to stay with female hosts/guests. By “safer” travel for women this is implying the whole concept of the app, having a social app that helps women connect with local like-minded woman were they can get all the insider tips on how to safely navigate that city is by definition making women “safer” that was the mission prior to releasing this new enhancement. We are in insinuating that female only hosts would be safer, it is a preference and makes many women feel more comfortable. This app would suit those who want or need that. For women who don’t need that they can continue to use Airbnb or whatever methods they current use. We are just providing an option for others. and yes i have many of my users talk about a lot of horrific experiences that have spanned by just being uncomfortable to sexual assault. again, this is not implying that all men are a threat, it is just a preference and the same ideology as our bathroom or locker set up in many public places.

As for your comment on fake profiles, we have a specific safety feature in our app that aims to address that. For example, in order to message another user, the app forces the camera to take a selfie of you which is sent to the user for approval or rejection, both parties have to approve to unlock messaging abilities. Someone has to go to great lengths to fake their profile in that case.

Thank you so much for your feedback. I take it very seriously and appreciate your thoughts.

The website is being updating, it is still only reflecting the social element of the app in its current version :slight_smile: