In order to increase direct bookings hostels need to work together to educate our guests. We need to tell them why it’s better to book their beds directly with hostels and encourage them to do so. With a push from us, backpackers will begin to develop this habit.
All hostels can easily join this important effort by printing the poster below and putting it up in a prominent position near your guest computers. (One version is in color, the other is black and white) This poster was recently sent to me and I think it’s brilliant.
In addition to putting up this poster, you can further assist your guests to book directly by making a contact list for all of the hostels in nearby cities where guests are likely to go. Whenever a guest tells you where they’re going, give them the contact details. Even better, offer to make the reservation for them!
10 years
I wonder would it be good to have like a day of action where all hostels change their facebook profile picture twitter etc. and leave it for a week.
The only downside I would see of this is if the liked of b.com who has rate parity became aware that a number of hostels were offering cheaper prices they could start looking more closely at our prices.
10 years
Hello John, we appreciate your interest.
A day of action will not help at all!
This is a technique that works for large scale public opinion.
Hostels and B&B don't take part of public opinion
we are private small business spread all around the world, as travellers.
We are still not connected as other social movements,
as greenpeace or avaaz, etc
Besides, any action that involves changing normal/day-by-day practices
will be seen as tedious and people will avoid it.
What we need is NOT PROTEST, we need to CONVINCE travellers !!!
this is the point. We all know that portals are bad and why they are bad.
The problem is travellers are not aware about that,
so they dont care how they make their bookings.
Therefore, all actions and effors should be directed to
EXPLAIN & CONVINCE TRAVELLERS why is good for them also to book directly.
For example, the poster recommended here is already out of date,
booking fee is not being used anymore, some portals have increased their commission. Booking.com not even charge a cent when someone book.
They charge the commission after the guest leaves.
This is very IMPORTANT, because hostels will not be putting their effor t and attention forever, so we have to make a good use of our effort
and direct it in an effective way.
The concept is:
EXPLAIN & CONVINCE TRAVELLERS why is good for "them" to book directly.
and there are several ways to do this.
But one important step is to give them a way to do that.
Have you noticed how hard is to find a hostel website or email address ???
That is why we signed up with the non-profit ihotelswa.com
they are commited to provide a free portal with open information
to contact any place in the world directly.
So once this got done, is important to direct travellers to this portal.
10 years
The main thing is booking direct saves them money and this is what the poster is showing.
The poster does not mention fees it states commissions.
There is an already great site that lists all hostels which is Hostelz.com and gives the information and reviews for hostels .
Now of course the issue is they also list OTAs and that is where they make their money.
The problem with ihotelswa.com website is as it says in the name the main focus is hotels and other properties.
As hostels we need our own portal.
10 years
Sorry John, you are very wrong
1. Hostelz.com DO NOT PROVIDE A WAY TO CONTACT ALL PROPERTIES DIRECTLY
2. THEY USE HOSTELWORLD BOOKING ENGINE WHEN YOU TRY TO MAKE A BOOKING
3. IHOTELSWA means INDEPENDENT HOTELS, and clearly include all types: Hostels, B&B, Guesthouses, etc
There is no other way to sintetized in one word in all languages all types of properties.
10 years
1. Here is a screenshot of my details from hostelz.com
2. They check prices on HB,HW,HOSTELSCLUB AND GOMIO for the best price
3. We need a portal for just hostels not hotels and b and bs also
10 years
Sorry John
we have searched more than 20 cities and all we got is
NO CONTACT INFO
AND A BOOKING TOTAL WHICH IS CONNECTED TO HOSTELWORLD ENGINE or hostels.com which is the same
although it dont show that until you try to pay !
The screenshot you sent seems to be an exception or from other website than hostelz.com
This is the link you got in 99% for 99% of the properties:
https://secure.hostelz.com/bookingRequest.php?listingID=30618&cityID=163...
10 years
Why would I need to lie about this.
So it looks for properties across all the sites and finds the best price.
If in doubt check my hostel listing where you will see the prices from Gomio and Hostelsclub as I put the cheapest price on their site.
http://www.hostelz.com/hostel/+223998-Dunloe-View-Hostel
So using the link you gave me for that hostel in Brazil go back to the listings page and click the location/contact button and you will see this
10 years
I like Hostelz.com because they allow hostels to link to their own websites (edit: the animated screenshot wasn't working, so I deleted it). The links are a little hidden, but that is understandable, because webmasters need a way to make money too.
Even though they use WRI's booking systems, they also use other booking systems. This allows visitors to compare prices between other companies, which I think is a good thing.
"Book direct" is a great idea, but many travelers are still going to want to read reviews first, and there have to be some alternatives to WRI out there.
Personally, I love the site and was using it a lot in my early travels (booking directly or just showing up after looking at Hostelz.com). :)
10 years
Hey guys. I just happened to notice this thread from a link the Hostel Management newsletter, so I'm a little late to the discussion. As "Hostels" said, at Hostelz.com we try to work with as many bookings sites as we can, not just WRI. We also work with Gomio and Hostelsclub, and are open to working with other booking systems, possibly eventually including some of the hostel management software systems to enable direct bookings. The preferred booking system for each booking request is primarily based on which system has the best prices / availability for that particular booking request.
We do include links to hostels' own websites and their phone numbers in the "Location/Contact" section of each listing. That does mean some users will leave our site to go book directly with the hostel, but I think it's important to offer complete contact info for hostels and let users take that route if they prefer. That just feels like the right thing to do in the open community spirit of hosteling since there are still enough bookings going through the paid booking systems to keep the site sufficiently profitable, and having that contact info makes the site more valuable and useful for users.
9 years
Hi Hostelz,
I was searching for the book direct poster and came back to this forum where I hadn't seen your comment.
I am wondering would you connect directly to a booking widget from a channel manager such as myallocator to show direct prices of hostels the way tripadvisor does this?
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