Tourboarding.com, a Chinese startup company, has taken off with their concept for giving budget-minded travelers the opportunity to stay with host families in exchange for providing English conversation or other valued services.

Pudong, Shanghai -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/04/2010 -- Based in Shanghai, TourBoarding.com has introduced a travel barter model that utilizes language fluency as a new form of travel currency that can be used in China or anywhere in the developing world where people yearn to improve their living circumstances via mastery of a second language such as English.

Travelers who plan to visit China can use TourBoarding.com's bilingual communication interface and travel barter platform to arrange a rich variety of travel benefits from local hosts, such as home stay, tour guiding, and Chinese language or cooking lessons. Instead of paying cash for any of these services, travelers can pay by speaking their native language to their hosts for two hours a day, to help them achieve proficiency in their desired language. English is the most in demand, but German, Japanese, and French are also highly sought by the Chinese.

"Unlike other sites that bring travelers and hosts together, TourBoarding is the first site of its kind to offer a structured framework for travelers and hosts to barter directly with one another for services and make specific arrangements according to their own needs," explained co-founder Ken Chen. The framework is also designed to be flexible enough so that travelers can deviate from the framework and self-design an a la carte travel experience according to their individual tastes and preferences. TourBoarding facilitates the searching, communication, and arranging process, but leaves the final details to hosts and travelers who are responsible for making any actual exchange happen.

TourBoarding is also the first site to offer traveler and host exchanges that are grounded on the principle of reciprocity: both traveler and host give and receive a valuable benefit in the exchange. Both have an equally vested interest in ensuring the success of the exchange. To date, many TourBoarding exchanges have been completed with positive testimonials posted on the site, demonstrating that TourBoarding's travel barter model is sound and viable.

Licensing opportunities are available so that this unique "high-impact social benefit travel model" can be replicated in other developing countries.

Even though TourBoarding is fairly new, it has become extremely popular with the Chinese who are anxious to use the site to meet foreigners they can host. They have signed up at a brisk pace ever since the site was officially launched on May 1, 2010. There are now thousands of hosts from all over China, from the first-tier cities to the remote towns rarely frequented by foreigners.

TourBoarding's travel barter model encourages diverse people to come together and share their personal assets by engaging in mutually rewarding exchanges. In recent years, there has been a distinct shift with increasing momentum from a culture of hyper-consumption to a more affordable, neighborly, and environmentally friendly culture of sharing.

Neal Gorenflo, visionary publisher of Shareable magazine, dubs this growing movement "the new sharing economy."

According to Mr. Gorenflo, "Technologies that help people share in the real world are taking center stage. This is the decade when we answer the question, 'how much can we share?' People are sharing cars, houses, expensive electronics, and more driven by new technology, cultural norms, and need." Examples are available at http://www.shareable.net.

Those seeking more information, or wishing to arrange a TourBoarding experience of their own, may visit http://www.TourBoarding.com.

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New Startup Makes Budget Travel In China A Reality Just In Time For World Expo 2010

Pudong, Shanghai -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/02/2010 -- A new Chinese startup company, http://www.Tourboarding.com, has created a unique opportunity for budget-minded travelers to stay with host families in China for free, in exchange for providing English conversation.

Hotel rooms are expensive during the World Expo from May 1 to October 31, 2010 and many are filling up quickly, so founder Ken Chen made sure the Tourboarding.com service was ready before the Word Expo starts.

More than 1500 Chinese families have already registered to host World Expo visitors for free in their home. In exchange, the visitors agree to speak to the host in fluent English for two hours a day, to provide their hosts with the opportunity to practice their English language skills.

"There are an overwhelming number of Chinese families willing to host due to the prohibitive cost of private one-on-one English language instruction," explained Chen.

Chen found this out for himself when he decided he wanted to travel abroad and went to a local language school to enroll as a student.

Last year, he resigned from his post as logistics director for Nike Sport China after 16 years in the logistics field, including a management role at Wal-Mart, so he could travel the world. However, he was
shocked to find out that tuition at the language school was a minimum of $3000 for two months study and private tutors charged $30 per hour. Chen realized this cost was prohibitively high for most Chinese families, given that a full time IT professional in Shanghai earns approximately $600 per month. He also knew many visitors to China were looking to cut costs wherever possible, and they would prefer options
to finding a hostel or renting a house in China.

That was the inspiration behind the Tourboarding concept, which offers an innovative way for travelers to leverage their language skills in exchange for airport pickup and dropoff, free accommodation with a host family, and two meals a day.

Tourboarding also offers travelers a more authentic travel experience, giving them the opportunity to live with and interact with locals and their families, rather than staying cooped up in a hotel eating at a hotel restaurant.

There are other options offered as well, including paid home stays and language lessons in exchange for the host serving as a tour guide.

Many host families have posted pictures of themselves and their homes on the Tourboarding website. Foreign travelers who have joined come from a range of backgrounds, including students, teachers, doctors, engineers, management consultants, and hedge fund analysts. The Chinese hosts who have registered on the Tourboarding site already have basic English skills so the foreign travelers do not have to know Chinese.

According to Chen's research, 100 million young Chinese are eager to improve their spoken English.

Chen partnered with Nuno Zhang, an IT expert, to create the Tourboarding site, which they plan to expand to include hosting opportunities for approximately 15 more countries. Those seeking more information may visit http://www.tourboarding.com.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm