A new platform in English and French connects students with language schools around the world, in a bid to “cut the middleman” and take the Airbnb model into the language travel sector.
Launched by French international education services agency Adiona, Holingo lists language schools in 13 destination countries and allows users to interact directly with them and book their language course online.
“The increase in direct bookings is a basic trend of the economy”
“It was urgent to modernise the language stay sector, which has been operating on the same economic model for years!” Adiona founder Yves Perret said in a statement.
The Holingo model, Perret said, allows the platform to offer cheaper language courses.
Schools signing up to the platform, “agree on affordable commission” and are required a “24-hour reactivity” in their interactions with students, the website reads.
The platform now lists over 260 schools and has 50k users, and on average schools are charged a 25% commission, Perret added.
Perret explained that schools need to fulfil certain “selection” criteria in order to be listed on the platform.
“Holingo selects schools by going to meet them at the various workshops, by recruiting only accredited schools and by promoting the responsiveness of these schools towards students on the platform,” he said.
“By common agreement, some schools have been removed from the site because they did not meet Holingo’s requirements for customer relations.”
UK ELT stakeholders have told The PIE that the sector has seen an increase in direct bookings. Commenting on the reports, Perret said that this is a “basic trend” that the language travel sector is now catching up with.
“The increase in direct bookings is a basic trend of the economy. It applies to all sectors today and the language courses market is now following this trend,” he said.
“For example, a few years ago, travel agencies were still selling hotel nights, now they are now specialized in customer niches and suffer from increased competition from web platforms.”
A Spanish version of the website is to be launched soon, with versions in other languages in store for next year.
