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Campaign to create a HOSTELS section on TripAdvisor

Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories

Rucksack Brian started this discussion 11 years 7 months ago

An industry-wide campaign is underway with the goal of creating a dedicated Hostels section for listings and reviews on TripAdvisor. Hostels are currently listed as Specialty Lodging in most cases.

Gal Mor of Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem recently addressed the issue with Doros Theodorou, Commercial Director, EMEA, Business Listings TripAdvisor for Business.

I asked Mr. Theodorou why Hostels being such a large and fast growing segment of the accommodation industry, don't have their own section in TA?
Instead hostels appear irregularly in TA mostly under "Specialty Accommodation" which is both not intuitive for people looking for hostels, and effectively the "graveyard" of the hospitality industry on TA.

Mr. Doros promised that TA would consider this point.

Support from hostel operators was requested in order to apply pressure on TA. This began with the creation of a facebook group to provide information, and has developed into an industry-wide campaign.

As nicely proven by BOA (the Backpacker Operator Association NSW Australia), in their action against Hostelworld's Standard Services and Licence Agreement, we as an industry, through collective action, have the potential to influence the large industry players!

Why should TripAdvisor be interested in creating this section, and how would it benefit hostels?

According to Mr. Mor:

Adding a "Hostels" section in TA next to "Hotels", "Specialty Lodging", "B&B and Inns", "Vacation rentals", makes perfect sense for TA.
It could very quickly make them the main search engine for searching and reviewing hostels, and would allow them to profit more from generating online bookings for hostels.

For us as hostels it would mean that it would be much easier for our guests to search and find us in our respective cities, and also add to the branding of our industry as professional and fast growing.

The cause was covered in the Tnooz article TripAdvisor urged to create new channel dedicated to hostels.

A TripAdvisor official says ”hostels can be found as a style button within the speciality lodging tab or by using our search functionality, which we continue to improve”.

“We don’t have plans to break hostels into a separate tab at this time, however; our product teams take on board feedback from business owners as well as our travel community and derive insights from the large amount of usage data we have available to us.”

Do you agree that a dedicated Hostels section on TripAdvisor would be beneficial for hostels and for travelers?

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Rucksack Brian

11 years

If you would like to support this effort, here are three ways you can get involved:

Join, like, and share the facebook group: Add a HOSTELS section to TripAdvisor.
Contact your TA account manager and ask them to add a Hostels section.
Join the letter-writing campaign by sending the suggested text (or something similar) to TripAdvisor.

I am writing to you as the [owner/ manager / other] of [hostel name] to strongly urge you to listen to voices in the the hostel industry, and add a dedicated hostels category on the TripAdvisor website. Hostels are the one of the fastest-growing sectors in tourism today, and are especially popular with those reading and writing reviews on TripAdvisor.

Having hostels listed in 'Speciality Lodging' or 'B&B and Inns', alongside campgrounds, apartment rentals and villas, is confusing for users and detrimental to the hostels themselves. We all lose out by this arrangement. If hostels were placed together in one category, TripAdvisor could quickly become the top way of searching for a hostel, which would be profitable for everyone involved.

I therefore ask you again to change your policy, and add a 'hostels' category to your search page.

Thank you,

You can write your own letter or simply insert your name in the text above and email it to any/all of the following contacts at TripAdvisor:

Ahmed Mahmoud, BL Account Executive – EMEA: [email protected]
Dan Cross, Territory Manager MEA: [email protected]
Tarek Allam, Telesales Executive: [email protected]
[email protected]

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Rucksack Brian

11 years

Momentum is building. 150 people have already joined the campaign, but there are a lot more hostel enthusiasts who could get involved. Please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to take part in this effort.

On January 21th, Gal Mor posted this update in the facebook group:

I'm in discussion with TA to set up a meeting with a high level decision maker at the upcoming ITB conference in Berlin in March.
I'll keep you posted.

Thanks to Gal's energy and persistence TripAdvisor may actually hear our request. Please help ensure that he will have the full support of the hostel industry when he speaks with them.

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John Moriarty

11 years

I got a phone call today from Tripadvisor asking about getting me to sign up for a business listing.

I advised the caller of the issue we are having in regards the listing and she said she will pass this on to higher management.

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Rucksack Brian

11 years

Here is the update from Gal Mor following the ITB conference:

First thanks to those who dropped by the pre ITB party at the Wombat's and picked up a "Add a hostel section to TA" badge!

At ITB a group of us walked over with our badges on to the TA booth and guess who I ran into? That's right, Mr. Theodorou himself! The same Theodorou I asked at WTM why they don't add a hostel's section and who told me he'll look into it.

Theodorou was very passive aggressive when he saw us with the badges on and when I reminded him that he promised to look into the matter several months ago. He basically gave me his card and told me to email him info on why they should make the suggested change.

Bottom line is that we got their attention and if he follows through on his statement and they consider our request based on info I'm going to send him, there's a chance it might happen.

The following day I spoke to Laura Daly from Stay Wise and enlisted her to help put the facts and figures together and also circulate a petition among Stay Wise members to add weight to our petition.

The fight is still on!
I'll keep you posted.
Peace!

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