Fancy activities...are they really necessary?

We will be setting up three or four things a week in the next month or so and it will make a world of difference as thus far our fun and character points on HW and HB have been low (and rightfully so since focus has been on renovations). We have up to this point been making biweekly inpromptu pub crawls with up to 6 staff and 20 guests. (still have not seen blackmail photos yet). We do have movie nights in the pub downstairs on Sundays and on Fridays a house band (really good too). We will be aiming for a combination of walking tours, pub crawls, games nights (poker, etc) and supper nights. Definitely adds to the atmosphere of a hostel. Nice that we have finally some common area renovated to start hosting stuff. Adds to the character and the memory factor of a guests travels.

Read this: http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Aboriginal-Hostel/Budapest/4545/reviews/

The first seven reviews ALL mention the evening activities. That´s quite a result.

Cheers for the flowers, Klaus! ;)

Indeed, since we run such activities, our average HW rating is up by +10%.
We only started it about a month ago but the results are quite promising. People are not only giving good reviews but extend their stay and tend to use more word of mouth advertisement. Also people rather book us because of the excellent reviews. I can only say more few months after when we can actually see more results.

Hoscars, here we come! :D:D:D

Obviously not that many but just have a look at what the people write:

Great accomodations, even greater staff. Got us drink specials, and took us on an epic bar crawl; made me want to work in a hostel. Definelty book this hostel if youre headed to budapest.

This place is amazing. The appartment is full of character, with incredibly helpful and friendly staff. They have activities planned ever night of the week, or you can go and do your own thing! (Big ups to Kelly and steve who run pub crawls, Hungarian Food and Wine nights and all the rest!) Excellent location to see the city. They go that extra step to help you out with whatever you need and make sure your stay is the best in Budapest! We will definately come back to the Aboriginal.

Now this hostel had soul! A nice chillaxed environment to come back to at the end of the day. A place where you chat to strangers like old friends.

Maybe the best hostel i´ve ever stayed in.

boomerangin' gnarly to the max 5000, mmm goon tasting night was awesome.

Awesome hostel with very nice staff! Small with that cosy family feeling. A ll staffmembers were always very helpfull and socializing with the guests. Loved the weekly programma with heaps of surprises.Location is in my opinion great. Keep up the good work!

Next to impossible to fault this hostel! Extra friendly staff, fun activities in the evening, very clean and the value for money was outstanding! Would highly recommend

That´s just quoted from the last 10 reviews. Absolutely impressing.

Congrats on the 10% increase!! How many reviews is that increase based on?

Well, this is why I didn't wanted to make any early statements, hence we only started running activities since a month ago but the result will be significant within couple of months (especially within the next 6 months when the old reviews will be gone). Right now it is about the last 15 reviews with average 96% comparing to August average of 86%. Maybe 10% was a bit early to say but so far the results have very good impression to me.

We just started an e-mail campaign to ask our former guests for more feedback and we have some other ideas about encouraging people to review us, so this process can give us a faster result.

I'll update this thread as soon as I have more facts and statistics available as this is where we started such topic first. Also then I can share some tips and help out about how to organize social activities. Since this project is a bit young for us to share any valuable information with you, I hope you understand if I talk about my experiences just a bit later.

Maybe we could hold a session about activities at the Unconference in December and if successful, we could continue at the Gomio conference in March? ;)