Have you ever despaired of life itself when faced with the wine selection in hotel minibars? When Stephen Rapoport recently drank an overpriced, fridge-chilled miniature of Merlot in a Berlin hotel, he had the ideal online platform on which to launch a solution.
His website crashpadder.com allows users to rent out their spare rooms, across many different countries around the world. To put together like-minded people, groups were created on the site, so that hosts with particular interest in cycling or photography, for example, could share their knowledge with their guests. The site has been running for two years but wine has been one of the most recent additions.
For the wine-minded traveller, it offers a canny alternative to traditional accommodation. At the moment, the site is a self-regulating community along the lines of the eBay rating system: feedback on each host is easy to find. Also, by messaging through the site, hosts and visitors can get a good understanding of one another.
The idea is that hosts can give their local recommendations to fellow wine lovers who stay with them, like a sort of bespoke concierge service. So, no chilled Merlot need be feared.
Future versions of the site will develop shared interests such as wine even further, in the aim of making it easier for people to connect. Wine, surely one the most convivial of pastimes, seems a natural partner for such an enterprise.
You can find out more at the website, crashpadder.com. Have any Purple pagers had any experience of this site?
