Couchsurfing survey results: motivations and negative experiences

This is the second post, providing an overview of the data collected during my survey research of Couchsurfing.org network. In the first post I wrote about demographics, CS use and individual trust in the network. In this one I will speak about motivation to use Couchsurfing and negative experiences in this social network.

Motivations

Couchsurfing.org users were asked to evaluate the importance of several reasons as motivations for taking up couchsurfing and joining the network. This somewhat reflects the official Couchsurfing discourse about sharing and learning as the main stimuli to use the network.
reasons to use couchsurfing

The similar set of questions asked about motivation for using Couchsurfing service at the time of the survey. This time saving money was named “a very important reason” even less often (only by 36.7%), while sharing own culture, learning other cultures and desire to help others gained the most (around 6% as a very important reason each).

Among other reasons to use Couchsurfing respondents particularly often named possibility to learn foreign languages and self-improvement (usually through the improvement of one’s social skills). Still a reason named even more often than previous two was using Couchsurfing “to find love or sex”. Apparently significant number of people use Couchsurfing.org as a dating website, although as it can be seen from the negative experience section in the same survey, not everyone is happy with that.

Negative experiences

Looking into the negative experiences on Couchsurfing was also one of the key topics of the research. On Couchsurfing only 1 in every 2500 references is negative. Previous researchers estimated that the percentage of actual negative experiences are much higher, up to 14.7%[1]. In the discussed survey 24.2% of respondents admitted having a negative experience on Couchsurfing. Hardly anyone has ever left a negative reference though. Reasons for that are too complicated to be addressed in this small post.

The main sources of negative experiences can be broadly classified into several groups:

  1. Generally inappropriate behaviour (dirtiness, careless by the visitors, excessive demands by the hosts, occasional drunkenness by both the visitors and hosts)
  2. Sexual harassment (inappropriate remarks or suggestive behaviour towards female members, solved either by discussing the issue or leaving. This kind of negative experiences most often resulted in actual negative references)
  3. Betrayal of Couchsurfing values (most subjective and somewhat ambiguous category of negative experiences related to unfulfilled expectations about adherence of other party to the CS principles)

Some people admitted that because of negative experiences they ended up frequently using AirBnB or hostels as an alternative to Couchsurfing.

Making world a better place?

Despite the negative experiences majority of users agree with the statement that couchsurfing as a cultural practice makes the world a better place.
does couchsurfing make world  a better place

There can be different ways of measuring positive impact of the network. Those providing more detailed answer to the question indicated that couchsurfing can help in reducing the prejudice and promoting tolerance. As one of the Couchsurfing members put it: “I think Couchsurfing develops more tolerance towards different cultures, more awareness about what life is really like in other parts of the world and simply broadens your horizon by meeting different people with different minds.”

When directly asked about trust and tolerance, most of the respondents indicated their participation in Couchsurfing made them more tolerant and trustful towards strangers.


The dataset described here is a part of my PhD research on Couchsurfing and hospitality networks, the full SPSS-dataset will be available for anyone after my PhD is published (which will happen early in 2015).

13 thoughts on “Couchsurfing survey results: motivations and negative experiences”

  1. hey, I’m writing thesis on this topic, is there anyway I could use your findings? Can you give me some more inffo about you so i could write about it in my Bibliography?

    1. Hi, what exactly are you interested in? All this info will be included in my thesis which is still not published.

      Meanwhile you can cite this page if you like. Something along the lines:
      Ronzhyn, Alexander. My Blog. 2014. http://ronzhyn.com/2014/motivations-and-negative-xp/.

      If you are interested in something specific, I can be reached at a.ronzhyn[at]deusto.es

      Cheers

  2. Hi
    Just to say “congrats”, very interesting work. I think this throw some scientific light over something that is a curiosity for many. Hope everything goes well in your PhD.

    Just by chance: would you be interesting in presenting a public webinar about this? I mean, a simplified version of it?
    I think this is really interesting to many people i know.

    Anyway, all the best!

    1. Hi, thanks for you interest.

      I am not really familiar with the way webinars work. Is there a special platform for that?

      I did already present the preliminary findings at one of the academic conferences. And now when I have already submitted my phd I have more time for self-PR, so why not :)

  3. Hey, is your PhD already published? Would like to use your data in my Bachelor Thesis, but it would be much better if I can cite them in a PhD-Thesis, as citing a blog.

  4. Hello,
    I’m giulia, an italian girl from the University of Pavia. I have to do a project, and run a regression by using R. I would like to have the couchsurfing dataset, where I can find it? or, is there any possibility that you send me the dataset? I would appreciate it a lot!
    thanks in advance!

  5. Hi,
    I’ve read both yours analysis, anda they are very interesting. Well done. I’m Angelo, and I’m finishing my master in Management. I’m doing a thesis on Couchsurfing and I’m really really interesting in both your datasets. Can you share both with me please? I would be very grateful, and if a day you come in Italy, you will be my guest. Thank you a lot.

  6. hi, I am writing a thesis about CouchSurfing motivation. I would like to learn more about CouchSurfing datum. Could I use your findings or share your datum with me : ) Thank you for your time for reading my comment.

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