Appinio x HomeExchange

Hospitality reimagined by the people who live it

How HomeExchange used market research to turn human-first values into national visibility

Rethinking hospitality with a purpose

HomeExchange, the first global community of home swapping, set out to explore how the French understand hospitality today and how that perception compares with the values lived daily by its 200,000+ members.

With the holiday season approaching, the brand wasn’t looking for abstract sentiment. It wanted data-backed storytelling to support its mission: travel rooted in generosity, trust, and real human connection. To bring this vision to life, HomeExchange partnered with Appinio to launch a research-led campaign that transformed cultural insights into strategic brand impact.

Brand Industry

Hospitality

Market

France

Scope

10 targeted questions

Respondents

1,300 (Split into 2 surveys of 1000 and 300)

A survey design that mirrors real life

The PR study was designed to do more than observe, it was built to contrast. Appinio ran a nationally representative survey of 1,000 French adults, asking ten essential questions about what hospitality means, how it's expressed, and how it's perceived.

In parallel, HomeExchange posed the exact same questions to 300 of its own French members. The result: a clean, credible dataset that directly compared mainstream attitudes with the lived values inside the HomeExchange community.

Spotlighting the values that set them apart

The insights revealed a clear emotional divide between general public habits and the HomeExchange community.
While the broader population often associates hospitality with formality or material comfort, HomeExchange members embrace simplicity, openness, and sincerity. Hosting becomes a shared experience, not a transaction.

The study’s structure allowed HomeExchange to do three things:

Dive deep into what hospitality really means to people in France today
Highlight how their members’ behaviors reflect a more generous and authentic way to travel
Build a compelling brand story rooted in real data, not just assumptions

Real results that travel far

Within days of completing the research, the impact was visible. The study earned five minutes of national airtime on TF1’s morning show, France’s most-watched private channel, all without a cent spent on promotion.But the exposure was only part of the story. More importantly, the research:

Sharpened brand positioning around human-first hospitality
Strengthened community loyalty by validating shared values
Reinforced thought leadership in a travel market

As Fanny Tesson, PR Manager at HomeExchange, put it:

“We needed fast, reliable, and large-scale insight into how the French perceive hospitality, and Appinio delivered exactly that. Within just a few days, we had solid, actionable data ready to be turned into a compelling story.”

Fanny Tesson - PR Manager, HomeExchange