MyFriendsRoom

Clare Mellor is a London based graphic designer and entrepreneur. She is the owner of  www.myfriendsroom.com where you can rent travel accommodation from your friends network. We have conducted an interview with Clare.

What inspires you to start this business myfriendsroom.com?

I was inspired by the need to find somewhere to stay when travelling abroad. I wanted to stay with friends rather than an impersonal hotel or someone's house on Airbnb that I don't know or trust. I have a lot of friends on social media from all over the world, but I wouldn't feel comfortable asking to stay with them and I wondered if there was a website where you could rent from your friends network. There wasn't a website like this, so I decided to create one.

What is your mission?

Our mission is to get friends out from behind their screens and start reaching out to each other in person again to meet up and stay with each other all over the world.

How safe is MyFriendsRoom compared with other vacation rental websites like Airbnb?

Most of the time you will be renting from friends or their friends so the whole point is that you know them already or someone you know knows them, so what better way is there to verify someone than to ask your friend? We also have a review system to give users an idea of previous bookings and reputation and there is a profile of each user so you can check out who you are renting from or to before you go ahead.

How is easy is it to join? How much does it cost to join to benefit from the service?

It's free to join and use MyFriendsRoom, like all other accommodation booking services we charge a booking fee.

What are the fees for friends who are hosting to list their rooms?

There are currently no fees for Hosts or Property Owners this because we want to establish ourselves in the market place first and attract people to list their rooms with us.