HomeExchange, Intervac, Kindred… Home exchanges are booming: “We would never have created such connections with Airbnb”

When they got married ten years ago, Michel and Gilles hosted friends from Austria, the United States, Mexico, and Australia in the Lot village where the wedding was held. A special feature of these guests: Michel, 68, and Gilles, 76, met them by hosting them or staying at their homes, via a home exchange. "If we had gone through Airbnb, we would never have created such bonds," explains Michel. This Parisian couple living in the 20th arrondissement has done nearly 80 exchanges, in Europe and around the world. "Six or seven have remained friends. In fact, tonight, one of them, a Brazilian who lives in Berlin, is coming for dinner! Pam and Ron, who are from Australia, also regularly give us news, and when their children came to Paris, we took them to a restaurant in the neighborhood," Michel says.

Michel and Gilles, retired after careers in banking and the Family Allowance Fund, have been exchanging homes for the past fifteen years. Swapping homes with strangers is nothing new: Intervac, the oldest non-profit organization, has been organizing them since 1953. But it is attracting more and more people: HomeExchange, the main player in France, claims more than 240,000 members worldwide, compared to only 66,625 in 2021. In France, the number of members has exploded, in the same proportions: it quadrupled between 2021 and 2025. And the number of overnight stays has doubled.