Vanishing Home Exchange Companies
Yesterday I came across an article someone had posted on the Internet listing every possible home exchange company he could find. Many of the companies he included remain as household names in the home exchange community, but an unprecedented number were names I remembered hearing of over the years, then just as quickly forgetting, and when I clicked on the links the author had provided to their web sites they displayed “page cannot be found” errors.
The article was dated August 2004 and comprised 43 entries. Exactly twenty of them returned errors when clicked. Virtually half!
This fits almost exactly what is written by business experts, namely that fifty per cent of all new business start-ups fail in their first year.
But this is not the fact that saddens me. I projected my point of view through the eyes of the many members these clubs must have signed up, and I wondered just what opinion they now have of the home exchange industry generally.
I imagine that the majority of their memberships would have been completely new to the notion of home exchange vacationing, full of enthusiasm, eager to begin, yet at the same time unsure and cautious. What a pity that so many of them were probably badly let down and disillusioned when their home exchange company simply vanished.
In the past I know I’ve been accused of being somewhat intolerant of new clubs but this exactly illustrates my concerns. When ExchangeHomes.com launched back in 1986, my competition could be counted on my fingers (thumbs not included). ALL of these clubs remain today. Throughout the years that have followed, dozens and dozens of new organizations have appeared, briefly glowed and all but a very few have fizzled out.
It’s such a shame that new home exchangers have become compromised so fast. Let down by the clubs they elected to join they are probably lost to concept for ever.
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