TripAdvisor is a name that invokes both familiarity and trepidation. It is both a trusted source of user reviews and yet beckons those of vindictive spirit if even the rain happens to fall while they are on holiday. No doubt TripAdvisor is a powerful online tool-slash-weapon, like a sharp butcher...
Who is Agoda?Agoda started up as an OTA in Asia in 2005 but was purchased into the Booking Holdings Group in 2007, which also encompasses Priceline and Booking.com. Agoda has always been Asia-centric, both in customer base and accommodation base, but has been expanding their offerings and audience...
This year’s American Hostel Conference had plenty to talk about. The two-day affair was hosted by VIkki Matsis at the Notso Hostel in South Carolina with many guest speakers and participants from Alaska to Maine. Here is a small excerpt highlighting what you may have missed from the event.The...
Marketing:IntroWelcome to the final part of this three-part series on creating your hostel website where we will detail what you need to know to successfully market your hostel. Although this is the first time we have covered marketing specifically you will be pleased to know that most of the...
How many of you have memories from your earliest days of backpacking that include finding dorms ranging from ‘I guess this will do’ to ‘this is appalling but hey, it’s cheap!’ A main fixture was of course the rickety bunk bed that woke you every time the other person slightly moved in their sleep...
Essential Elements:What is the purpose of your hostel website?To decide what the essential elements are for your hostel website we must go back to the original question - What is your website for? The answer for most people is to turn visitors into guests at your hostel - simple. So now the...
Who will you get to staff your hostel? And how will you find them?Staffing is one of the most time-consuming aspects of owning a hostel. You need to be able to rely on the person to arrive on time, do the tasks you have set out for them to do, *actually* clean properly, greet other guests with a...
The Purpose of DesignThere are two main components to any website - design and content. Content is the information, images, sound or videos that are contained within the site. Good content will encourage people to keep coming back to your site or carry out a specific action such as making a...
Ten Good Volunteer Traits1. The volunteer is intensely social, friendly and insatiably interested in other people. They always want to know something interesting about other people and can recall that information later in conversation. They may even be a bit goofy or eccentric, but they are...
If you would like to learn from hostel industry professionals and share some ideas about your own hostel, the American Hostel Conference will be held in Charleston, South Carolina on 21-23 January this year. With several presentations throughout the two days, important topics like...
Adding user-reviews to your website is a significant way to give the reader value and lets them see what other guests think about your property directly on your site. A couple of ways to obtain user reviews is to 1) generate a departure email survey and 2) use the reviews left by guests on OTA's or...
Hostel Management has been an integral part of running, owning, opening and even selling on a hostel for over a decade now. We have new supporting members signing up every month for access to the wealth of information this light publication provides. And I am not just talking about the articles,...
