The Research of Couch-Surfing Appeal to Consumers as an Alternative to Traditional Travel

The purpose of this study is to identify the potential attractiveness of couchsurfing as an alternative to the traditional types of tourism. Three major cities of Russia, namely Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, were taken as a basis for the research. The study contains the analysis of theoretical studies of Russian and foreign authors on the topic of couchsurfing and the review of the website of couchsurfing.com platform. Further it was compared with the platform for the search of private placement facilities of another type - Airbnb.ru. An empirical study was also conducted using cluster and regression analysis to determine the factors that affect the attractiveness of couchsurfing. In general, based on the results of the study, the attractiveness potential of couchsurfing in large Russian cities is quite high. There is a possibility of increase in the popularity of this type of tourism during the next few years.