How To Host International Guests in Your Home
as a Successful Business Enterprise
We are here to help you create and sustain your hosting business, to show you how to optimise your resources, to make a healthy profit and to reduce your workload in 2024 and beyond.
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Who are we, and how
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guests in our home?
It is a common practice in many countries, especially in English-speaking ones, for individuals or families to open their homes to international visitors who want to improve their language skills. Visitors may be students, their teachers, visiting lecturers, medical staff, airline staff and other professionals.
In 2022, English language teaching centres in the UK taught over 225,000 full-time English language students. This is up 111% on 2021 figures and is well on the way to overcoming the downturn during the pandemic.
(Source: 2023 Student Statistics Report Executive Summary, English UK).
Language schools, colleges and universities are always in need of more hosts. There are never enough to accommodate the vast number of students, and there are more and more wishing to learn English and signing-up to language schools every year.
This truly is a massive and growing market, and provides a huge opportunity for hosting and a healthy profit for you!
If you have a spare room in your home, combined with our help and resources, you can be making a decent income within 30 days - yes, honestly!
The primary goal of hosting is to provide the guest with an immersive English-language experience. Host families encourage their guests to speak English at home, which helps them improve their language skills rapidly.
The guest pays a fee to the host family through the language school accommodation department for bed, breakfast and evening meals, or a bed and access to your kitchen to cook their own meals (your choice). In return you both get the cultural exchange and they get English language learning in an authentic setting. Generally the payment is made to you every 2 weeks.
You always have a choice whether you prefer adults or children, and the duration of their stay with you. It is a very flexible and can be a very profitable arrangement.
The easiest way to get started is to read our book:
'The Ultimate Guide to Hosting International Guests'
available from Amazon as a paperback or a Kindle eBook.
It is a comprehensive "How To" book on hosting language learners in your home. Covering all the necessary information you will need to provide a positive and enriching experience for individuals and families who host.
You are welcome to our FREE newsletter :
'The International Host's Chronicle - your monthly guide to hosting excellence'.
We personally hate the ridiculous amount of emails that flood our inbox every day, so we promise not to do that to you. The newsletter is once or twice per month and there may be an occasional email if regulations change that you need to know about, or we find useful tips that can help you streamline your hosting business, save you money and enhance your profit level.
Other Useful Information / Links :
ENGLISH UK is the national association of English language centres in the UK :
They have a vast amount of useful information on student numbers visiting the UK, countries of origin, comparison charts for year-on-year registrations of students, associated and registered language schools in your area and country-wide.
HMRC Property Income Manual / Rent-a-Room Scheme :
Full information on how much you are allowed to earn from renting out a spare room in your home, before you start paying any income tax.
Basic DBS checks :
There are web services that require you to pay a premium for a DBS check. This link is the UK government website that will run a basic check at a cost of £18.00 and most are completed within 2 days, but can be up to 14 days.
When to use NHS 111 online or call 111 :
If any students are ill whilst staying with you and require non-life threatening treatment, then refer to this UK NHS website in the first instance and especially if you are unable to contact the school directly.
Cambridge - English language free learning resources :
As it says - free learning resources that add-in extra skills to your abilities to assist your students in the learning process.
The Chat Room / Forum is under development, so please bear with us.
Soon you will be able to chat with fellow hosts, to ask any questions and get multiple answers.
But you are not alone, so in the meantime please email your questions, comments and feedback using the button below, straight to our inbox.
Emails will be answered in 24 hours or less (usually 2 hours maximum, if you email us between 8.00am and 8.00pm GMT, and that includes weekends).
Nic and I have been hosting English language learners in our bungalow in south-east England since March 2014.
In the beginning we had one spare bedroom and a shared bathroom, so we hosted one mature guest (usually over 21 years old) and long-term (3 months to 7 months duration). We provided breakfast and dinner for the guest, and this arrangement fitted in with our work and family schedules at the time, plus giving us a very useful additional source of income.
Whilst this was a good start, Nic wanted to leave her highly stressful job as a special needs teacher, so we came up with a plan to convert the bungalow, adding a top floor with two bedrooms and another bathroom.
Since the conversion we have striven to provide the very best hosting experience to between 10 and 20 guests per year, and have been rewarded with many positive testimonials. We have also made many new friends, several of whom have re-visited us in later years.
Alan, September 2023