Report

Hostel Websites

Hostel Trends and News

wjday started this discussion 13 years 5 months ago

Hi,

I´m currently travelling around central and south america and couldn´t help but notice that few hostels have their own websites, seemingly content to use hostelworld and other portals for bookings.

My question is why hostel owners choose to do this, thus missing the opportunity to advertise the ammenities, prices and availability of their own hostel on their own website?

Is it because of the cost of creating a site? Or the overhead of managing the site? Or simply that the portals (hostelworld, hostels.com) do such a good job in advertising the hostel already?

Are there hostel owners out there who would like a site but just don´t know where to start (or are afraid of cost and/or time to deliver)?

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated

William

Comments

Report

Good Morning Hostels

13 years

Hi Willima,

As a hostel owner (3 in Belgrade, Serbia and one in Budva, Montengro, www.sunhostels.com and www.goodmorninghostels.com) and lots of experience i can explain it from my point of fiew.
Cost of developing web page vary from country to country but in esence they are not that big of a problem. The biggest problem is web site optimization and links you create connecting to your website. In that area is really hard to compete with booking engines as they create millions of links (and have a ton of text that google likes) so in every search involving word hostel they are first in the list.
Second, almost every hostel is giving better price to booking engines (because they have to compete and distinct with other hostels) than they actually have on their web pages.
Third, guests feel it is more safe to book through 3rd party, as they consider booking directly thorugh email or phone is less convinient in case of some misunderstanding (type of room, price, etc...)

But, anyway, any good hostel owner/manager that the best way to present itself is through web page and for that reason only they should have it :)

Hope this helps

Nikola Vacic
[email][email protected][/email]

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated

William

Report

Tony

13 years

G'day Bill - I'm a manager of an 86-bed, rural 'mum-and-dad-run' hostel on the Great Ocean Road in south-west Victoria, Australia.

IMHO - and based purely on my experience in this hostel - the issue you've bumped into reflects one of the harsh realities of managing and running a place like this, when you're running a hostel in the country, where many of the things you need to do, to get the doors open every day, you need to do yourself... you tend to devote your time and energy to the day-to-day things that MUST be done each and every day, each and every day, leaving things like the development of a decent website on the backburner until you get a break in the traffic. And that's simply a harsh fact of this industry - I've got new guests arriving every day who couldn't give a damn that the web site I had wasn't fully functional (tho' it is now, but it's taken a s__t load of time and effort to get it to that juncture). What they DID care about was the cleanliness of my place. They DID care about me making sure I had a bed for them. They DID care about me making sure my internet kiosks were working. They DID care about me making sure I've got enough poop paper in the loos for them (etc, etc, etc... you get my drift). I found early on that my hostel's content on microsites such as HB and HW did an excellent job of promoting my hostel, so long as the info I put onto them was decent. And, from what I've seen, day-after-day, if you can get a hostel to create a decent facebook page (content added about every two days... respond to other people's content... make it interesting - tell your friends about what's happening in your area), and combine that with decent content on HB and HW, you're almost there anyway.

Report

Scotch Argus

13 years

Whilst one can create a decent online presence for a hostel using portals, booking engines and facebook, a hostel website is still essential, as it's the hostel's face on the online world. It doesn't have to be ultimately professional with heaps of flash content etc. It just has to give out as much info as possible about the place with some nice pictures, and convey whatever image the hostel wants - if you want to be a party hostel, then it's pretty easy to give that impression through your website.

The main reason to me is financial. If you can get people to your website you can get them to book through your website. We use a hostelworld booking engine on our website, and all the deposit money for bookings made on our website come back to us. This amounts to thousands of dollars a year, which if we didn't have it, would go to HW or another booking engine. People want to book online, so it's good if they have the opportunity, and you get the money for it.

Report

Josh Hostels

13 years

It doesn't have to be ultimately professional with heaps of flash content etc. It just has to give out as much info as possible about the place with some nice pictures, and convey whatever image the hostel wants - if you want to be a party hostel, then it's pretty easy to give that impression through your website.

Actually, Flash websites aren't a good idea for hostels, because Flash doesn't rank well in search engines. There are also several other reasons why Flash isn't a good idea.

A plain HTML website with clear information on it, like you mentioned, is perfect. :)

Search form

Report 'Hostel Websites'?

Report 'Re: Hostel Websites'?

Report 'Re: Hostel Websites'?

Report 'Re: Hostel Websites'?

Report 'Re: Hostel Websites'?

Join the world's largest community of hostel professionals.

Check Your Email