Travel Technology

Coral: a New Tool for Home Sharing

As an active home swapper I have a visitors’ guide that’s 9 pages long. It includes details on how to operate appliances and other technology, where to find stuff like extra toilet paper and towels, and also interesting attractions in the neighborhood and beyond. Much of it is organized it by room, to help people find what they need quickly, but in truth I think it’s too long to be easily helpful to my guests. Who really wants to sit down and read nine pages of detail on the house they’re staying at for a week?

Recently I came across Coral a technical solution that could really revolutionize my visitor guide. Sadly they are pre-beta so I haven’t tried it out yet.

Coral

Coral offers an interactive guidebook to help guests learn about your home and neighborhood. They say the app will work on cell phones and other mobile devices as well as computers. I don’t think we have any guests showing up without at least one piece of technology on which this would work. And it looks so much easier to navigate than my stapled packet of papers.

They organize information by room (like me!) and also have a section for essentials, and a map on which you can pin all the interesting places nearby with customized descriptions.  This is a cool way to let people take your neighborhood suggestions out with a map to guide them around.

I’m eagerly anticipating the release of Coral to step up my hospitality services for my guests.