Gail Richardson is in charge of home hosting for the Parkes Elvis Festival and Teagan Massurit has really enjoyed the experience of opening up her home to guests.
As excitement is mounting for the Parkes Elvis Festival, a call has gone out to residents in Parkes and Forbes to consider opening up their homes to festival goers to help ease the shortage of accommodation.
“We really need more people to come aboard with home hosting,” said Gail Richardson from Ray White. She has been managing home hosting for more than six years and said in the time no homes had been damaged and nothing had been stolen.
Gail assists homeowners every step of the way from giving them a checklist to marrying up the right guests with the right hosts.
She said at the moment she had a waiting list of over 200 people still looking for a place to stay. “I can understand people are still hesitant after COVID, but we had no issues this year.”
Teagan Massurit, who had done home hosting for a couple of years, said she would recommend it to anyone. “I’ve always had lovely people and they really got me involved in the festival. I never used to go to any events, but my guests asked me out with them. It is just great hearing their stories and they are so happy that it makes you happy too.”
Gail said the recommended price to charge is $90 per person per night, of which $72 goes to the howe owner. The $18 balance goes to the booking system. “Ray White has never made money and considers it a community service.”
If you would like to find out more about home hosting, contact Gail at Ray White in Parkes.