11 years
Right on! They used to but have dropped it in recent years. Very frustrating. We have limited our allocation to them as a result.
Hostelbookers not making arrival time compulsory field
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We are a small hostel and do not have 24hr reception, we can organise late check-ins but need prior notification. Hostelbookers does not give a compulsory field for guests to state an arrival time - it is optional. 99% of the time guests will not put their arrival time even though we write to them and ask after the booking and it is stated in important information.
I have asked hostelbookers why they cannot change arrival time to being a compulsory field and they say it is for "commercial reasons" wtf?
If anyone else think it would be beneficial to their hostel to have arrival time being a compulsory field please write to Hostelbookers requesting it, if enough of us request it they should put it back. It would be something really simple for them to do and would make things much easier, at least for a hostel like ours.
- Comments
11 years
I often book my hostel before I book the transport to the city. So at the time of booking the hostel, I have no idea what time I will be arriving. What should I then put in a compulsory field that only allows me to choose a time?? :confused:
11 years
Quite simple really, you could choose any time and then email the hostel to say you will notify a more accurate arrival time later when you arrange travel.
11 years
It's a compulsory field with Hostelworld. On HW if a time of arrival is not selected then the arrival time defaults to 11:00am. We find that at least 80-90% of people show up around their forecast time, no matter how far in advance they made the booking OR they contact us to update. The remaining 10-20% are easily managed, they are often delayed in transit, no shows or just not concerned. The problem with Hostelbookers bookings is that since it has become a non mandatory field we have no idea of when almost 100% of the HB bookings will arrive. Knowing when guests are arriving gives us so many advantages in our operation. We can easily do late checkouts, allocate rooms better, staff the hostel more efficiently and even arrange for a mariachi band if needed to greet the guests upon arrival. In this case, advantage HW.
11 years
Exactly Patrick, I would give most of my availability to Hostelworld over this issue but it happens we have a higher rating on bookers at the moment so are receiving more bookings through them. If our rating goes up again I will definitely give hostelworld preference and will let Bookers know why! I cannot think of a good "commercial" reason as they state -
Thank you for your email.
Yes, there are reason behind this decision. We researched and examined this subject thoroughly during a several months long period after what we decided not to implement this functionality any more for commercial reasons.
Please note that even though we are not planning to implement this again in the near future, this might be something the company will revisit and review at some point in the future.
I hope this will not prevent you from receiving the usual high number of successful bookings.
We are sorry that we cannot be of any further assistance regarding this issue.
and the first email
Thank you for your email.
I am sorry to hear that you require a functionality we cannot offer at present.
Whilst we appreciate the need, we are sorry to inform you that this is not a functionality we shall implement in the near future.
We have taken a note of your request and suggestion, however.
We hope that the clear requirements stipulated under your Important Information will encourage guests to provide this information to you.
I am sorry for the inconvenience this causes.
Thank you for your cooperation.
11 years
I am sure that the commercial reason that they state is because they want less things for a traveler to fill out on their way to pushing the "book now" button. This is especially true in mobile. Every place where a travler stops and has to add information is a place where they potentially will decide not to book. HB probably decided that they needed to make their reservation process simpler and they probably had some analytical information that arrival time was a point that they got a lot of dropoffs (and to them it was expendable), so "arrival time" found its way to the chopping block.
11 years
Hi Chris
Does this mean your app does not have an arrival time input? I notice that you have partnered with Hostelworld to get access to all their hostels for your app. Have you disabled this function? HW still has the input for arrival time in their inhouse mobile app. What will your app bring to the table for hostels? Will you be promoting all the properties listed in the property database that HW provides you? ie Are you going to rank properties the same way HW does? Are you going to list motels above hostels on your site? Obviously you are promoting your product on this forum through comments and advertising. Why is listing with your app an advantage for hostels outside of HW's own app?
11 years
Hi Patrick,
In the new version of our app, we have taken it out, but not for good (it is in our old version). Our solution to this is to add a "arriving laye" button so the hostels know who will be arriving late and they can coordinate directly with those travelers. The reason that feature didn't make it into the new version is because we needed to get the app out for a promotion we were doing around SXSW in Austin, TX and some features needed to be left out so we could hit our deadline. We are going to submit an update to the AppStore so we can add in the features that didn't make it into the previous version (including the "arriving late" button).
As for what we bring to the tables for hostels above hostelworld's mobile solution is a superior design and experience as well as adding social features. Admittedly, this is more of a benefit for the traveler than the hostel, but a better experience for the traveler leads to more bookings which is good for everybody. We are not taking direct listings, we are working exclusively with Hostelworld to provide us with allocations. The reason for this is so we can concentrate on where we feel we can add value, creating the best hostel booking app on god's green earth.
As for how we are displaying search results, we display hostels first, ordered by Hostelworld ranking. We do display hotels and bnb's as well, but these are displayed after all the hostels. Eventually we are going to build out a system where people can leave their own review in the app, similar to foursquare's tips (we can only pull hw number ratings through the API, not the text).
This post is kind of long and getting a off topic for this post. I hope I have answered most o your questions, but if not or you have more,I am happy to talk more about our plans. You can email me directly at [email protected].
11 years
I am sure that the commercial reason that they state is because they want less things for a traveler to fill out on their way to pushing the "book now" button. This is especially true in mobile.
That's interesting... I can see how that might affect bookings.
I wonder if it would help for the booking sites to take the booking and on the confirmation screen say something like, "One last thing: please enter your arrival time for the hostel, and then we will redirect you to a list of tips about your booking: __[fill in arrival time]__."
Even if they didn't fill out that information, the booking would be complete. If they didn't complete that field within 5 minutes, an email could be sent that says something like "Make your trip easier: click here to let the hostel know what time you will arrive. This will help your trip go as smoothly as possible."
EDIT: or maybe some A/B split testing to see if that extra field does actually increase the number of people who don't complete the shopping cart.
I'm not sure if those are solutions that would work -- just brainstorming out loud. :)
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