This article in The Guardian.co.uk stuck out to me. I've only ever heard of Homestays through Study abroad programs or student travel sites. At first glance it's a pretty straightforward and informative article, but a bit stiff for me. The author gives us a very simple intro into the growing popularity of Homestays, but with no evidence of this 'trend.' They then launch into a list of possible Homestays options in India with some background on the property, location, area, and what's included.
Nelpura homestay, Alappuzha, Kerala" width="460" height="276">
What I think would be great would be an accompanying article that gives a few peoples personal experiences on one of these homestays and possibly some ratings. As the article sits now, it seems to be a marketing push by a Homestay agency that represents the different properties. If you look closely you can notice that under each 'Homestay' option is a link to a lot of the same websites. My keen (some may say skeptical) sales and marketing eye makes me think the site may have paid some sort of advertising fee to be featured in this article. But on further inspection it seems possibly the author was given an 'assignment' to find out some Homestay options and he/she simply googled the topic and this is what they found. The author doesn't really have any heart or any real investigative information about these places. So on that front it's a rather weak article because they author hasn't done any reporting.
While I like the premise of the article, picking a new and different way to stay while traveling, the article was not executed well. The author could have added so many other dimensions to the story and provided more useful and practical information for potential travellers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/sep/07/india-homestays-top-10
i totally agree with you. it seems that a lot of travel articles nowadays look like marketing tools. And I love your idea to bring out the human elements of the story.
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