AdWords or other PPC marketing?

I joined this forum with the intent of flogging my services doing SEM and AdWords, but before I post my "Hostel Work Wanted" ad, I wanted to find out if many hostels are currently running AdWords campaigns and whether or not they have been successful.

Before I left to go travel a few months ago I worked at Google for 5 years. During that time I worked with many large hotels and hotel aggregators, but never with any hostels (I only worked with very large clients).

So I was wondering if anyone has tried AdWords and if it worked for you. If not, what problems have you encountered? I'd assume that Hostelworld bidding on your hostel name could be an issue.

Also, has anyone tried running ads on Google's content network?