No accommodation costs on your holiday, home exchange is becoming increasingly popular

This May holiday alone, 224 overnight stays are already planned in Zeeland via the HomeExchange website, an increase of 446 percent compared to last year. Project manager Dharmen Nokhai had to blink twice when he saw the ‘exorbitant’ figures. “A huge increase.”

The number of Zeelanders offering their homes for home exchange through the company has also increased. Last year there were about ten, says Nokhai. “There are currently 67 members in the Zeeland region.” So one of them is Sofie Saman. For her, house exchange is no longer new. She has already moved houses eight times.

“We started in the Netherlands and then we looked further afield. Paris, Singapore, the French Alps, Switzerland….” Members can submit an exchange request to each other via the site where the houses are listed. “Recently I have received a lot of requests from Germany or Belgium, but I don’t find that very attractive because it is close by,” says Saman.

Before the exchange starts, the homeowners contact each other via a group app. “You send so many messages to each other in advance that it almost feels like you are already friends,” says Saman. “I don’t have the feeling that I am bringing strangers into my home. In addition, no items have ever been broken or lost. It is mainly about having confidence in each other.”