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Columbian Hostel Association

Offline Marketing

Rucksack Brian started this discussion 13 years 7 months ago

Hostel associations and networks were a topic of discussion at the recent Backpackers United hostel conference in Germany. Here is an article promoting the Columbian Hostel Association.

The Colombian Hostel Association (www.colombianhostels.com ) is a nonprofit organization set up some years ago when Colombia was crying out for tourists. Theirs was an attempt to entice those few tourists coming to Colombia into their hostels with the promise of good, clean, secure and affordable digs with all of the appropriate information so that those tourists that arrived could then travel on about the country safe in the knowledge of where to go and what to see and do.

Every year a few more hostels are inducted into this Association by invitation and the numbers now close to 30. The requirements are straightforward and include the availability of shared dormitories and all of the appropriate legal paperwork as well as having been up and functioning for a minimum of one year.

I like the idea of hostel networks that help backpackers find accommodation for their onward travels. It can be good for the backpackers and for the hostels involved. Which hostels to accept in the organization then becomes a big question. Some networks, like Columbia, require new hostels to be invited by existing members. Other associations are open to any hostel that meets the minimum requirements. There are some that allow a maximum number of hostels per city.

What do you think? Should hostel networks and associations be selective in their membership, or should all hostels be allowed to join?

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Good Morning Hostels

13 years

I happen to be the president of Serbian Youth Travel and Hostel Association (www.sytha.org) which was pretty inactive last year, due to lack of funding from the government and most important due to lack of hard work. The thing is, i am against paying any amount for membership fee, and i have 4 hostels (3 in Belgrade an 1 in Budva, Montenegro and i am director of big travel agency) so it pretty hard for me to do it by myself.

My point is that for some association or network there should be lot of hard work involved to make something happen, and without membership fee you can only count on other hostel owners to give their time and energy to put something in place. That said i think it is unreasonable to have all hostels in the association benefiting from other people work. That leave us chosen few to get all the perks when they come, so in my opinion there should be some restrictions who can get in a network.

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