Hostel reviews

(No, don't worry about the hijacking, most of these comments are right to the point -- which is that the big boys are dictating how we do things.

I wouldn´d go so far as saying "they are dictating how we do things".

IMHO, big boys can only "dictate" us how we do things when we aren´t aware of it. Or when we are simply too lazy to bother.

Life tends to reward people who use their brains.

I have been running uktrail.com for some years. Its role is to have listings and reviews of nearly all hostels in Gt Britain, together with facilities to book online when possible. A special feature is that I personally visit as many of the hostels as possible. So from my experience plus reviews gathered from numerous sites I can give a pretty comprehensive picture. Take a look here to get an idea of what I have been offering.

But now almost everyone goes straight to Hostelworld. Bookings through my site have dropped to virtually nil. So uktrail.com has, essentially, lost its role.

You are absolutely right about the people going straight to Hostelworld. Sites like yours (or BUG) were a great help some years ago, when I tried to decide which of the 50-ish hostels in London would be the nicest one for me. There was "user generated content" there before the "big guys" even knew how to spell that term.

Where there might be a role, as you say, is in the 'niche market' of small hostels. Now I have taken over the ownership of small-hostels.com, I would like to explore that role.

I guess there´ll be a revival of small hostels, appartment rentals and B&B´s. The small properties always had a major disadvantage: the sales channels through travel agencies weren´t available (they want BIG allocations, not one or two rooms) and classical marketing was way too expensive for them.

Now: with the internet, travel agents are unnecessary. The last time I used a travel agent was in 2001, although I travelled a lot during the last seven years. The internet makes it easy for small properties to attract guests. When I travel with my Mrs and the kids we often use Homelidays to find accomodation. It´s a fantastic site with thousands of small properties listed, pictures, google maps, user reviews and it doesn´t take away commissions for every booking - the owners just pay a small fee once a year.

Many small hostel owners say websites like Hostelworld or the big hostels / hostel chains will ruin them, but small hostels won´t disappear. Many travellers prefer small hostels and the big ones won´t go to less-travelled destinations anyway.

I'd be delighted to include reviews, and to extend to other countries. But, while making a profit is not important, it is important to get sufficient funds, from booking commissions or otherwise, to make the effort feel worthwhile. Should we seek some sort of a system that would parallel Hostelworld but be more suited to small hostels, maybe using Gomio? Or should we seek to get quoted on Google?

Does Google have any financial arrangements with Hostelworld etc, as the quoted reviews could take people to Hostelworld to book? How does a hostel get into their lists -- simply sending a form to Google saying they exist and are a hostel?

If I ran a site with reviews, might I be able to get Google to look on that site for reviews? What if the reviews were my own 'digest of reviews'? I guess they would have to be laid out in a way that Google could recognise them as being reviews.

Answer (if I understood that correctly):

Google Base allows sites to submit content, including reviews, directly to Google.

I don´t think Google is stupid enough to ask Hostelworld (or anyone else) for commissions. They try to make their website useful - if it´s useful, you will use it more often, which will enable them to collect more data from you, which then makes it easier for them to put the right sort of ads (for you) in front of your eyes.