Homestay agencies can manage homestay networks and coordinate homestay so much easier with Homestay Systems.
Host families can access and update their homestay profiles online, see compatible available study-tour groups or individual hosting opportunities based on distance and other internal filters, and apply for any hosting opportunities with a clear view of requirements and fields to express preferences.
Homestay coordinators can then see a list of each host family wanting to host a study-tour group or individual, with a clear sense of their hosting preferences, photos, inspection scores, guest reviews, average review score, and other considerations. When clicking to confirm a host family for guests, or decline them, or add them to a backup homestay list, a popup appears with an option to send a personalized and customisable email notification to the host family.
Homestay Systems makes it easy for coordinators to promote hosting opportunities to a custom filtered list of compatible homestay families with mass Email or SMS campaigns including personalized information. Coordinators can see SMS responses and can also send individual Emails, SMS messages and follow-up further with phone calls.
Admin can give permission for coordination staff accounts to access any homestay profiles and to do anything on behalf of host families who prefer to communicate by phone. Staff can be given access to specific sections and functionality at an individual account level without any additional cost for staff accounts (no hidden fees).
Homestay Systems makes so much more possible, and easy, such as easy guest-list matching with confirmed host families, auto-calculating homestay payments for batch-file bank processing, payment notifications, SMS updates to all or some host families who are confirmed or backup for a visiting group or individual, and auto-feedback gathering.
Homestay coordinators save so much processing time and process so much easier with Homestay Systems.
Click or mouse-over these images for a clearer sense of system features.
Manage host family profiles online with ease
Host family profiles are so much easier to maintain and manage, with clear data-rich tables showing relevant profiles.
Distance based searching makes it easy to find hosts within range of any location, and results are shown in tables with excel-like abilities including ability to move and resize colunms, hide or show colunms, and to filter and arrange by data in a colunm, such as by name, city, tags, status, groups/individuals available, delivery/open status of recent email sent to them etc ... super flexible and powerful.
Enable host families to sign-in and update their profiles
Enabling host families to review and update their profiles online enables them to share updates with ease, and eliminates the requirement for someone to process the updates via phone or email copying and pasting, freeing time to focus on other coordination matters.
Easy maintenence of required "Working with Children" cards, with renewal auto-reminderes
By identifying what cards are required (e.g. "Blue Cards" for home members age 18 and over, living in Queensland Australia), the required forms, and how many days each form must be completed before hosting or before an existing card expires, it becomes easy to view a list of host families with cards which require attention and to auto-remind them to complete the required forms in order to host adolescent guests.
Identify homestay opportunities and specify who can apply to host
You can exclude some hosts beyond a maximum travel duration (e.g. 30 minutes drive) and with other filters. Payments are calculated automatically from the nightly payment rate and visit dates. Hosting requirements are clearly identified for all host families to see when applying and when re-confirming acceptance of guests.
Enable host families to see and apply to host any guests
Enabling host families to see available hosting options and to apply themselves saves so much phone and email processing time while providing more clarity.
Confirm host families, add them as backups, or decline them with such ease
When viewing host families who've applied to host guests, you can view their preferences, comments and an overview of their profile (e.g. inspection score, review score, hosting history, travel distance, tags) and process them with an easy click of a button.
Upload homestay itinerary for potential and confirmed host families to view with ease
Having access to the homestay itinerary enables homestay families to ensure their schedule is compatible or seek support before applying for the group or before the group arrives, and also enables them with access to their itinerary at any time online.
Import guest lists, auto-match guests with hosts, and manually confirm arrangements
Guests can identify home-sharing preferences and pet aversions. Host families identify preferences when applying for groups (e.g. age, gender, # of guests). Auto-match will then arrange guests with hosts, for you to review, optionally update, and confirm placements.
Email host families when they are confirmed, placed on backup, or declined
When you confirm a homestay family, decline them or place them on the backup list, you will have the option to send an email to them to tell them. A standard template will show, which you may choose to customise for all such future updates or just for an individual email.
Include a personalised summary of available, confirmed and backed-up homestay visits in Emails
All emails can include personalised data from the homestay profile (e.g. names) as well as lists of study-tour groups or individual guests they're confirmed or backups for, or may apply for or have already applied for. Clear communication, reminders and information access is key to successful homestay coordination.
Auto-request host to re-view guest data and hosting requirements, and to re-confirm
After confirming guest placements, hosts will receive an email including guest information and a link to re-confirm acceptance. They will be asked to review and re-confirm their profile information is up to date when re-confirming acceptance, to minimise any undesired surprises and cancellations.
Send a personalised email to some or all host families from a group or individual's profile
When viewing a study-tour group or individual's profile, you may choose to send an email to some or all of the applied, confirmed or backup host families. You may auto-personalise the message with their name etc. This is handy when sending updates such as itinerary changes.
Send a personalised SMS to some or all host families from a group or individual's profile
When viewing a study-tour group or individual's profile, you may choose to send an SMS to some or all of the applied, confirmed or backup host families. You may auto-personalise the message with their name etc. This is handy when sending updates such as itinerary changes & coach delays.
Auto-SMS confirmed host families 1 day before arrival as a friendly reminder
An SMS is sent to hosts telling them that you look forward to introducing them to their guests. Some hosts respond to say thanks for the reminder, and some occasionally say they forgot and can't host. Any response is better than a host family unexpectedly not showing up.
Enable host families to share reviews of guests, to clarify preferred clients
Hosts can provide reviews direct from their accounts, or you can add their reviews to their profiles for them. This enables you to gain more sense of their experience, and to gain more sense of the overall experience by hosts of certain groups or from certain agents.
Auto-email host family 1 day after departure to request reviews
One day after guests depart, host families are sent an email with a link, asking them to click the link to share their review of their guests and of your coordination, for you to be able to review and process.
Optionally share relevant online data access with supervisors of tour groups and individuals
By creating accounts for supervisors and identifying which study-tour groups or individuals they're supporting, it's incredibly easy for them to gain an overview of all visits you're coordinating together, and to access information such as the homestay itinerary and homestay list.
Optionally share relevant online data access and processing options with clients and host-schools
By creating accounts for clients and host-schools, and identifying which study-tour groups or individuals they're supporting, it's incredibly easy for them to gain an overview of all visits you're coordinating together, and to access relevant data and processing options. Choose what information they can and can't see (e.g. show host family names and photos but not contact information to clients).
Export an ABA (batch payment) file for easy batch payments with your bank
After you identify what days of the week you process payments, you will be able to see an exact payment schedule showing when and how much to pay each homestay family for the time they've hosted guests thus far.
It's easy to then export an ABA file which contains all homestay payments to process on a certain date, to import the file when signed in to your online bank account, and to pay multiple host families with the same single process. This saves you time and perfects accuracy.
Email paid hosts a detailed payment notification
After confirming which homestay payments have been successfully processed, optionally send a personalised email to them with details of how much they have been paid and for what.
We’ve reduced average staff coordination time per homestay guest from about 75 minutes to about 20 minutes. We’ve also improved accessibility and ease of communication, and significantly reduced confusions and recruitment costs.
The best way to sense how much quicker and easier homestay coordination can be is to express your interest here so we can arrange a live video walk-through of Homestay Systems for you.
Discover how much easier and and more enjoyable
homestay coordination can be with Homestay Systems
We will contact you and arrange a time to see if Homestay Systems is right for your organisation
Websight Creative started creating Homestay Systems in 2016 to support Choice Homestay‘s growth in Queensland, Australia.
Homestay Systems now enables Choice Homestay to perform existing processes faster and easier than ever before, as well as many advanced processes which were not practicable before. This has enabled Choice Homestay to provide advanced homestay coordination to clients and over 3000 guests per year, as well as over 2000 approved homestay families in Queensland, with a small competent and happy core team.
In light of Choice Homestay’s success with Homestay Systems here in Australia, we decided in 2019 to re-create a new and further improved commercial and secure version of Homestay Systems for homestay agencies around the globe to also operate easier and better. We firmly believe we are making our world a better place to live by enabling caring homestay coordinators to make better homestay connections and to better support homestay experiences and the creation of ongoing relationships with appreciation for one-another.
This new version of Homestay Systems has been created to be extra accessible, customizable by each agency, and super fast to load huge lists with thousands of homestay profiles, while providing a super-collaborative real-time view of data with any changes auto-updating without needing to refresh. We’re proud to say the outcome of our efforts are even better than expected and we look forward to sharing more sense of Homestay Systems with more coordinators here in Australia and globally. Please feel welcome to contact us for more sense of homestay coordination potentials.
Globally Focused, Australia Based
The Shores, 1 Como Cres, Southport
Gold Coast, Queensland