Homestay agencies and schools can coordinate so much easier and faster with Homestay Systems.
Hosts can access and update their homestay family profiles online, see compatible study-tour groups or individual hosting opportunities based on distance, availability and other filters, and can apply for any hosting opportunities with a clear view of hosting requirements and fields to express preferences.
Coordinators can see who has applied for each study-tour group or individual guest and can process applicants with a clear sense of their hosting preferences, family photo, inspection scores, guest reviews, average review score, and other considerations. When confirming a homestay family, declining them or adding them to the backup list, a personalized and customisable email can be sent to the homestay family with a click.
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 Email and SMS messages.
Admin can give coordination staff accounts permission to access any homestay family profiles and to do anything on behalf of host families who prefer to communicate by phone, and much more.
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, SMS updates to all or some of the host families who are confirmed or backup for a visiting group or individual, and gathering feedback.
Ultimately we save homestay coordinators time and improve processing speed, ease and accuracy by performing many homestay coordination processes automatically or with easy quick button clicks.
Click or mouse over these images for a clearer sense of system features.
Having host family profiles online enables better and easier coordination for you, for them and for any other coordinators you choose to enable with access. Quick search by keywords or distance enables you to access most recent profile information in real time.
Import host family profiles
It's easy to import family profiles, by adding their data to an exported excel file and then importing the file.
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.
Import payment remittance file to auto-confirm successful payments
After processing payments, import your bank's payment remittance file to auto-confirm which payments have been successfully processed.
Note: Each bank's payment remittance file is different, so if you're with a bank we haven't already integrated with then we will need to first get a copy of your payment remittance file and do this integration.
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 90 minutes to about 20 minutes.
The best way to sense how much easier and better homestay coordination can be is to express your interest and for us to arrange a live video walk-through of Homestay Systems.
We will contact you to 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 quicker 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 core team.
In light of Choice Homestay’s success with Homestay Systems here in Australia, we decided in 2018 to re-create a new and further improved commercially available version of Homestay Systems for homestay agencies around the globe to operate easier and better as well. We firmly believe we are making our world a better place to live by enabling caring homestay coordinators to make easier and better homestay connections and to better support homestay experiences and the creation of ongoing relationships and appreciation for one-another.
This version of Homestay Systems has been created to be highly customizable with varying account permission options, as well as extra accessible, secure, functional and quick, while providing a super-collaborative real-time view of coordination data without needing to refresh. We’re proud to say the outcome of our creative efforts are evolutionary and we look forward to sharing more sense of Homestay Systems with more homestay coordinators here and abroad. Please feel welcome to contact us for more sense of homestay coordination potentials