Something weird unfolds.
Our number of bookings through Hostelworld in October 2008, compared with October 2007, is 4% down in Vienna and 16% down in Munich. That has never happened before. Since 8 years, Hostelworld sales went in only one direction: up.
Now, Hostelworld also shows the number of bookings city-wide compared to the previous month.
Munich: -19%
Vienna: -17%
Berlin: -12%
So: the rest of the hostels in town are even worse off. You may say that less bookings in October isn´t unusual, because season is over. However, it is unusual. This is October 2007 compared with September 2007:
Munich: +20%
Vienna +3%
Berlin +2%
I had a closer look to find out what´s going on and looked at the "customer analysis" - that shows where the people who made bookings are from.
Compared to October 2007, the number of Americans is 39% down in Munich and 22% down in Vienna. There are also less Britons and Canadians, though not that much.
Then I checked if I missed something and compared the months before to the same in 2007 - nothing unusual.
So: this may either be a huge and very rare outlier or something very serious is going on. Until September, 20% of our guests were Americans. They won´t be easily replaced.
Check your recent guest statistics - is it the same everywhere?
16 years
I wonder if they're just experimenting. TripAdvisor.com puts their "sponsored links" more prominently on the pages than their booking links. TripAdvisor also offer bookings through Hostelworld and Hostelbookers, though they are probably making under 5% on the bookings.
16 years
With us its useless to compare months, because Dresden is one of the smaller town, so the percentage of people coming from a particular country can easily differ a lot from month to month. But statistics are getting more serious if I compare years. So, in my special case I wouldn't be to worried if the percentage of one country goes down in October.
1st of January - October 31st
2007 compared to 2008 (% Bookings out of 100% bookings)
loosers:
USA 21,17 % - 15,64 % (74% of last year)
Australia 11,24 % - 10,33 % (92% of last year)
Canada 10,65 % - 7,75% (73% of last year)
England 8,13 % - 6,74 % (83% of last year)
Spain 5,74 % - 4,88 % (85% of last year)
China 4,19% - 3,44 % (82% of last year)
Hong Kong 2,03 % - 1 % (49% of last year)
winners:
Germany 4,9 % - 6,46% (132% of last year)
Japan 3,95 % - 5,16 % (131% of last year)
South Korea 3,83 % - 5,16 % (135% of last year)
Taiwan 2,03 % - 3,16 % (156% of last year)
This are just hostelworld numbers. I am especially surprised by the drop of China and Hong Kong, I haven't heard anything bad from this area.
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