bathroom question

I would like to design the separate toilet rooms as small as possible, but without making my guests feel cramped or claustrophobic.

Some research was done in the hotel industry several years back that concluded that a customer’s satisfaction with the room was directly proportional to the size of the bathroom. My experience is the same. If your bathrooms are small, people will say the hostel feels cramped, even if your dorms are quite spacious. On the other hand, if your dorms are acceptable (or even on the small side) but your bathrooms are big, people are likely to rave about your bathrooms and ignore the dorms.

On the other hand, you can never make everyone happy, and some people are going to complain no matter what you do.

I wonder if the research was more weighted towards hotels (as opposed to hostels)

As far as I can remember the research was done by and for Hyatt Hotels. So yes, it was weighted specifically for hotels. I would be surprised if the results would be different if the same surveys were given to backpackers though.

Would that mean that smaller bathrooms are within the expectations of backpackers and hence their expectations are satisfied?

I think that's a fair enough conclusion. No one is expecting big luxury bathrooms in a hostel, so they're not going to be disappointed if they don't get them.

Anyway, as strange as it may sound, I try to design my bathrooms as big as possible, in the smallest available space.

Despite the actual measurements of the space, the color of the light bulbs, paint, and tiles may make your bathrooms seem bigger or smaller than they really are. Your interior decorator may be able to help you pick the right colors. In default of a decorator, your local paint store clerk may be able to give you the same advice.

Do guests prefer to keep their towels by their bed, so as to prevent someone from mistakenly using it?

My personal preference is when hostels put towel hooks in the room. If there isn't wall space they can be fixed to the bunk beds. If there aren't hooks, guests will leave wet towels dangling over the edge of the bunks, sometimes not in the best places for the other guests. :)

I think it's good to have hooks in the bathrooms too. People shouldn't leave their towels in the shared bathrooms, but while they're in the bathrooms, it's helpful to have hooks. (Sturdy enough for when somebody hangs their daypack from it.

^^It might be a good thing for you to stay at some different hostels and then you would have answers to some of your in room questions. Hostels are very organic in nature and the way to develop your own is to experience not just to ask basic questions of stuff you should know. No insult intended. Maybe just go to the European hostelworld conference and buy beer. You will get all the answers and more.

Thanks for your advice. I would really like to go and experience more of the hostel experience, but I don't have the time right now, nor the possibility to get away from my current activities.

I know some of the questions I ask are very basic. Sorry for that. Back in the old days at school, a teacher taught me that no question is too "basic" (actually she used another word) to ask. There might be others with the same question, but who are not willing to ask it, afraid that they might appear too "unknowledgeable". It might be that, by asking these basic questions (and, hopefully getting answers), there might be others that are also benefitted.

For the time being, not being able to live and find for myself all those little details that make or not make a pleasant stay for a guest at a hostel, I find this forum to be the best alternative to that. And I am so thankful that it exists. Actually, I think that it is more probable that I will get an answer to my questions by asking them in this forum than if I were at the European Hostelworld Conference. And also it is a lot cheaper alternative. (By the way, I am in America.). Where else could I find so many knowledgeable people from all over the world, without having to travel the world, and without having to wait for the next hostel conference? Where else could I find people with the same interests as I have, even maybe with less knowledge, but with questions that I hadn't even thought about? No other place.

Thanks again for your comments. Actually, you answered one other question that I had at the back of my mind (It was: Am I asking too basic questions?)

I hope I don't get banned from this forum because of my questions.