ECINPERSON · Project

Home Dining Marketplace Connecting Travelers with Local Hosts Across Europe

digitalMarket-readyTRL 9

Imagine you're traveling to a new city and instead of eating at a tourist restaurant, you book dinner at a local person's home — authentic food, real conversation, cultural exchange. That's exactly what Withlocals built: an Airbnb-style marketplace but for home-cooked meals. The EU funded their expansion across all European countries, turning everyday home cooks into micro-entrepreneurs who can host up to 45 dinners a year. The platform handles bookings, recommendations, and even pushes nearby dining options to your phone when you're walking around a new neighborhood.

By the numbers

481,000

Target bookings by June 2017

€1.3M

Target revenue

28,000

Target hosts across Europe

1,200

Ambassador network

Team headcount target

20%

Platform markup on host price

40-45

Max bookings per host per year

€2,499,999

EU contribution

The business problem

What needed solving

Tourism and travel platforms struggle to offer truly authentic local experiences — most city guides and restaurant recommendations lead to the same tourist traps. Meanwhile, millions of home cooks across Europe have cultural knowledge and cooking skills but no easy way to monetize them as micro-entrepreneurs.

The solution

What was built

Withlocals built a peer-to-peer marketplace platform for home dining experiences including scalable European server infrastructure, a mobile app with a data management platform, and a push recommendation engine that suggests nearby hosts to travelers in real time. The project delivered 10 work packages covering server setup, app development, and intelligent booking recommendations.

Audience

Who needs this

Online travel agencies wanting to add authentic local experiences to their portfolioFood tour operators looking to scale beyond guided group toursSharing economy platforms expanding into food and hospitality verticalsTourism boards seeking to promote cultural exchange and local entrepreneurshipHotel chains wanting to offer guests curated off-site dining experiences

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Tourism & Hospitality Tech

any

Target: Online travel agencies and experience booking platforms

If you are a travel platform looking to diversify beyond hotel and flight bookings — this project built a peer-to-peer marketplace for home dining experiences with a 20% transaction markup model. Their rollout covered 4-6 countries per quarter with a target of 481,000 bookings and 28,000 hosts across Europe. The scalable server infrastructure and push-notification recommendation engine could serve as a model or acquisition target for expanding into authentic local experiences.

Food & Experience Economy

SME

Target: Food tour operators and culinary experience companies

If you are a food experience company struggling to scale authentic local offerings — Withlocals demonstrated how to recruit and manage 28,000 home dining hosts across Europe using an ambassador network of 1,200 people. Their model caps hosts at 40-45 bookings per year to maintain quality and authenticity. The data mining and push recommendation system they built could help you match guests with nearby hosts in real time.

Platform Technology

SME

Target: Marketplace software developers and sharing economy startups

If you are building a peer-to-peer marketplace and need proven scaling infrastructure — this project invested €2,499,999 in European server setup, mobile app development, and a data management platform for personalized push recommendations. Their architecture was designed to handle traffic growth from zero to 481,000 bookings. The technology stack for matching supply and demand in hyperlocal experiences is directly transferable to other sharing economy verticals.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What does using this platform cost for hosts and guests?

Withlocals uses a transactional model where the host sets the price and Withlocals adds a 20% markup. There are no upfront fees for hosts — they earn from each booking. The platform targets 40-45 bookings per host per year to keep the experience authentic.

Can this scale to cover all of Europe?

That was the explicit goal. The rollout plan covered 4-6 countries per quarter across Nordic and Mediterranean regions, targeting all EC countries by mid-2017. The project built scalable server infrastructure specifically to handle growth to 481,000 bookings supported by 28,000 hosts.

What about intellectual property and licensing?

Withlocals BV is the sole partner and owns the platform technology including the data management platform and push recommendation engine. As a private company (not a university consortium), IP is fully controlled by Withlocals BV. Based on available project data, no open licensing terms are indicated.

How does the recommendation engine work?

The platform combines a mobile app with a data management platform to generate personalized push notifications. For example, when a guest is near a host preparing dinner at 5PM, the app suggests booking. Two release cycles were planned — a pilot release followed by a full deployment.

What is the timeline from project end to market availability?

Withlocals was already an operating marketplace before the EU project began — the funding was specifically for European scale-up. The project ran from June 2015 to September 2017. The platform at withlocals.com was live and taking bookings during and after the project.

Is there regulatory risk around home dining?

The project operates in the sharing economy space where food safety and local hospitality regulations vary by country. Based on available project data, the 40-45 booking cap per host per year was designed partly to keep hosts as micro-entrepreneurs rather than regulated food businesses. Specific regulatory compliance details are not documented in the project data.

What support infrastructure exists?

The project planned for 1,200 ambassadors to support host recruitment and quality, plus a team of 46 staff. The ambassador model provides local presence without heavy fixed costs in each market. Server infrastructure was built in stages to match traffic growth.

Consortium

Who built it

This is a single-company project — Withlocals BV from the Netherlands is the sole partner, which is typical for SME Instrument Phase 2 grants designed to help individual companies scale. With 100% industry participation and no university or research partners, this was purely a commercial scale-up effort. The €2.5M EU investment went directly into platform technology and European market expansion. For a business considering this technology, the lack of consortium complexity means all IP and decision-making sits with one company, making commercial discussions straightforward.

How to reach the team

Withlocals BV is a Dutch company — contact through withlocals.com or via SciTransfer for a warm introduction.

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Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want to explore partnership or licensing opportunities with Withlocals? SciTransfer can arrange a direct introduction to the team behind this EU-backed platform.

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