Free Online Hostel Benchamrking Tool

As the association for youth travel accommodation, one of STAY WYSE’s aims is to provide tools to hostels, to improve standards and in doing so help them build their business and increase income.

The hostel sector has always been regarded as inferior to the hotel sector in terms of professionalism. STAY WYSE will help hostels overcome this hurdle by providing you with a tool which will help you grow your business.

Ever heard of benchmarking and revenue management?

Benchmarking is a widely used process in the hotel sector which can help you amongst others, manage your revenue. The idea is to compare your operations against your competitors; operators of a similar size, or with a similar target market. Benchmarking is considered to be a major part of business development as it gives hotels a clear and thorough understanding of which things need to be achieved in order to be the best. The purpose of benchmarking is to learn from others and not to reinvent the wheel.

STAY WYSE has partnered with a benchmarking industry expert, the Benchmarking Alliance Nordic AB, and developed a benchmarking tool specifically for the hostel sector. The tool will, unlike hotel tools, allow competitor comparisons according to beds and rooms (the hotel sector currently only looks at rooms).

The tool will give you indicators of current availability and bed & room price within your immediate market area or the geographic zone you choose. If the average occupancy is 65% and rate is $20 and you are achieving less than this then you can alter your strategy to improve your sales.

For example, if your occupancy is down and your bed or room rate is up you might be overcharging. Therefore you could consider dropping your rate by a few dollars to increase your occupancy and thus take more money, as you end up selling more beds. This would then also have a knock on effect on your food and beverage sales and other in house sales.

Likewise if your occupancy and your rate are down, you know the market is there but your advertising or standards of service are causing you to miss business so you alter these rates accordingly.

In summary the tool will allow you to see what your competition is doing and by knowing this you will be able to adjust your rates to increase sales. To gauge the interest for such a tool, STAY WYSE is currently requesting hostel operators to complete the following short survey.

We need your support to make it a success and look forward to receiving your completed survey.