ALKHOBAR, 21 August 2007 — Booking tickets and vacation packages online is something that almost everyone is familiar with in our digital age. What if I told you that you could “book” a friend for your next trip, too? In a way, that’s the idea behind Maurizio Marmotta’s website www.FriendsOnArrival.com. Whether you’re going off on a business trip for a few days or holidaying in an exotic destination, Marmotta believes that FriendsOnArrival can make your stay in a new city more enjoyable.

“FriendsOnArrival is a global online community designed for people of a more discerning age who have moved home or are about to, or who travel for work or leisure, and want to make new connections at their new destination. It is also ideal for locals looking to expand their circle of friends,” Marmotta explained. “The site attracts thousands of people from 57 countries, and because of its broad audience, we set out to make sure it is friendly, safe and easy for everyone to enjoy.”

Marmotta is an Australian, born to Italian parents, who makes his home in London. Having traveled the world most of his life, he’s quite familiar with the pain that goes into leaving old friends and then finding new ones.

“The idea for FriendsOnArrival came from my own experience of moving around, and every time, having to start over — and the older I was the harder it got!” said Marmotta. “I saw there was an opportunity to start an online community which wasn’t youth-centric or singles-based, or focused on just business networking. Something you can feel comfortable about using without the stigma or presumption. One that was more about making genuine friendships.”

FriendsOnArrival is free to join and On Arrival Limited, the company headed by Marmotta which administers the website, has taken serious measures to ensure that members use the site in the comfort of knowing that the information they have provided is kept within the FriendsOnArrival community.

“To that end, we moderate all public content and adhere to the strict TRUSTe privacy program. Members must be 16 years of age or older to join and most of our members are well over that,” said Marmotta.

What does all this mean? First, all online applications to FriendsOnArrival must be approved by On Arrival Limited. On Arrival Limited also ensures that no antisocial or pornographic content is posted. On Arrival Limited discloses its information practices and has its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe, an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to build users’ trust and confidence in the Internet. Members of FriendsOnArrival are required to provide a limited amount of information when joining and all other information posted by a member in the viewable profile is optional.

Arab News contacted Steve, a FriendsOnArrival member currently living in Saudi Arabia, and asked him to describe his experience as part of the FriendsOnArrival community.

“I originally registered with Friends on Arrival when I was living and working in the UK,” Steve wrote. “While I have a good network of friends ‘in real life,’ I’m always interested to meet new people wherever I’m living, be they fellow Australian expats, travelers from other countries or locals. I don’t use Friends on Arrival exclusively. It’s one of many sites that I belong to that bring together people of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who all share the joy of traveling to new places and meeting and understanding new people. I have made a few good friends through Friends on Arrival and other similar sites, almost all of whom I’ve met up with at some stage.”

He added, “The other aspect of the site that I enjoy is being able to provide advice and tips to other people traveling to places I’ve visited. The benefits of having some on-the-ground knowledge when one arrives somewhere can’t be overstated, and communities such as this thrive on such information. I also like the fact that Friends on Arrival is a moderated community. It means that you don’t have to sift through millions of ‘friend invitations’ from people who are just trying to build their public appearance of popularity. It’s just somehow more genuine.”

Steve has had a positive experience with FriendsOnArrival but he did advise that there are some safety rules everyone should follow in regards to meeting people through travel websites.

“Never give out personal information to people you don’t know,” emphasized Steve. “Never arrange to meet someone in person in a non-public place. Don’t respond at all to inappropriate messages/contact — even to tell the sender to go away. However, that said, with a site like Friends on Arrival, I’m pretty happy that the moderation carried out by the management is of a pretty high standard. I’ve never had a problem there, whereas on other sites spam, unsolicited/unwanted contact is pretty common.”

An example of a site that has a less than ideal policy in regards to control of undesirable content is “The Couch Surfing Project” at www.couchsurfing.com. Couch Surfing is “a worldwide network for making connection between travelers and the local communities they visit.” A novel aspect of the couch surfing experience is the ability to advise if you have a “couch” available for a member to sleep on during his/her stay in your area. Couch Surfing does have a “vouched for” and “verified” program, but it’s possible to both offer and accept a “couch” without any of these assurances in place. The couch surfing community is much less tightly controlled and this would seem to increase the potential risks.

“Many other ‘friend’ sites have less strict polices than FriendsOnArrival, but we’ve actually noticed that because we don’t allow undesirable content, our site attracts quality members. For example we regularly have a married couples join where the husband and wife are both 50 plus years old,” said Marmotta. “The fact is that people over 50 years of age have 80 percent of the world’s spending power. Once we monetize the site we believe that an older demographic made up of well-traveled global professionals will be the most attractive to potential advertisers and partners.”

Recently, many organizations are recognizing that travel is an area where there is plenty of potential for new services. Aramco ExPats recently launched the Aramco Expats Travel Club. This is a travel club for Aramco ExPats wishing to once again experience and enjoy traveling together throughout the world. Club members will share travelogues, travel information and experiences, hospitality and friendship.

Other companies are attempting to unify and streamline older online travel industry offerings. For example, Vacation Rentals Web Directory (www.vrwd.com) provides a single gateway to thousands of vacation rental websites from all over the world. The VRWD marketplace reviews and rates vacation rental websites and vacation home listings from around the world.

VRWD, like FriendsOnArrival, is moderated. VRWD is a human-edited directory where renters can find trusted vacation rental websites and homes, and vacation rental owners and publishers can become trusted members. The directory states that “it is committed to quality and reviews every submitted listing before approval.”

Thus even as people move to online resources for travel and tourism, it’s becoming recognized that the human element combined with appropriate web technology can definitely create a better user experience in our increasingly networked world.