This holiday season, Eatwith — the world’s largest community for authentic culinary experiences — isn’t just launching a campaign. It’s making a cultural statement. With Give the Gift of Sharing, the platform is nudging holiday shoppers away from overstuffed gift lists and toward something the world seems to crave more urgently than ever: real human connection.

And it’s a message backed by data. American Express’s 2025 Trendex study captures a striking shift — nearly 70% of consumers would rather share a meaningful experience with loved ones than exchange physical gifts. Experiences beat things. Togetherness beats transactions. As loneliness quietly becomes one of the defining public health issues of the decade, we’re watching a clear consumer trend unfold: people want resonance, belonging, and memory-making moments.

Eatwith, it seems, is meeting that moment head-on.

The Sociology of Sharing: Understanding the “Ways of Wonder”

At the core of the campaign sits fresh qualitative research from sociologist Dr. Laura Arciniegas, who describes the impact of Eatwith encounters as Ways of Wonder. Her work reveals that what’s happening around a dining table goes far beyond cuisine — it’s emotional architecture, cultural storytelling, and community-building rolled into one.

Ordinary Life Made Extraordinary

Guests don’t see a choreographed performance for tourists. They see the rhythm of real life: a grandmother’s recipe, a host’s childhood story woven into a sauce, the true texture of a neighborhood. The ordinary suddenly becomes unforgettable.

A Safe Space for Experimentation

Eatwith meals place guests at the crossroads of curiosity and comfort. People try ingredients they’ve never tasted, participate in customs they’ve never encountered, and ask questions they wouldn’t normally pose. It’s learning through doing — without judgment.

Breaking Stereotypes

In a world often divided by narratives and headlines, a shared meal does the simplest, most powerful thing: it humanizes. Guests discover that culture isn’t a postcard. It’s personal, nuanced, and often surprising.

These findings align with what many travelers have been saying informally for years: authenticity is increasingly the most valuable travel currency.

“Feeling at Home”: What True Hospitality Sounds Like

The standout quote from Dr. Arciniegas’s research comes from a Canadian guest describing a Roman Eatwith supper:

“I am here eating and sharing with people I don’t know, feeling at home at someone else’s home, there is no way to describe that. You can’t feel more at home and comfortable than that.”

It’s a sentiment that commercial tourism rarely manages to evoke anymore. Hotels can polish, restaurants can impress, but very few can genuinely embrace you. That sense of being welcomed, not processed, is exactly what today’s travelers are chasing.

Bursting the “Luxury Cocoon”

If 2010s travel was defined by luxury escapes and curated itineraries, today’s movement is veering sharply toward immersion — an idea echoed in the New York Times feature How to Burst Out of Travel’s Luxury Cocoon by Christine Negroni and Andrea Lee Negroni. Their advice to travelers is simple: if you want authenticity, you have to break the bubble.

Eatwith makes that incredibly easy. Instead of searching for a hidden café or hoping to bump into a local in the right mood, travelers are welcomed directly into someone’s home. No buffer. No artificiality. Just conversation, culture, and a table that becomes a temporary micro-community.

Why Eatwith’s Message Lands Now

The timing of this campaign is far from accidental. The travel and hospitality sectors are observing a pivot: experiences with emotional depth outperform purely recreational or luxury-focused offerings. Skift, Deloitte, and Booking Holdings’ annual trend reports all reinforce the same insight — travelers want meaningful human encounters, not polished itineraries.

And Eatwith isn’t alone in this space, but it stands apart.

Compared with similar players

• Withlocals offers private tours and activities with locals, but culinary intimacy isn’t its main focus.
• Airbnb Experiences provides a wide variety of activities, yet the platform’s scale often dilutes the sense of personal connection.
• Traveling Spoon comes closest, emphasizing home-dining experiences, but operates at a smaller global footprint.

Eatwith’s advantage comes from its community-driven model, its 130+ country network, and its meticulously curated host selection. It doesn’t promise “activities with locals” — it promises a seat at someone’s table, where culture is lived rather than performed.

Join the Movement: Gift Something That Lasts

This holiday season, Eatwith invites gift-givers to rethink what a gift can be. A shared meal in Paris, a family-style feast in Rome, a cooking class in Tokyo — these aren’t transactions; they’re memories waiting to happen.

An Eatwith gift card is an invitation to pause, to share, and to step into someone else’s world — even if only for an evening. It’s a reminder that the most valuable luxury today is not exclusivity but belonging.

For more information or to purchase a gift card, visit www.eatwith.com.

Conclusion: Experience Is the New Luxury

As the travel industry continues redefining value, platforms like Eatwith are proving that the most sought-after commodity isn’t convenience or exclusivity — it’s connection. Reports from American Express Trendex, Booking Holdings, and Skift all point in the same direction: the future of travel lies in shared, emotionally resonant experiences. While competitors offer various ways to meet locals or try new activities, Eatwith’s singular focus on communal dining gives it an authenticity edge that aligns perfectly with 2025’s evolving traveler mindset. This holiday season, gifting an experience isn’t just thoughtful — it’s perfectly in tune with where global travel culture is heading.