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Hostelbookers.com normally so difficult to deal with?

Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories

Blind Eye started this discussion 13 years 10 months ago

I applied to be listed on hostelbookers.com some time ago, been having really good results from hostelworld.com and their affiliates but it's good to get yourself out in as many places as possible and also they don't charge any booking fee to the customer which kinda fits with my personal ethos; when I found that out (via hostelmanagement.com I believe) I wrote them immediately.

After maybe 10 days I received a form letter telling me that Prague was "FULL" and I would either have to sit on a waiting list or sign up for their affiliate site which is for group bookings (not my personal forte nor something we're really suited for) at double the commission and sign a service agreement that would allow them to charge 20% for booking through hostelbookers as well.

I wrote them back asking for some clarification as to the length of the waiting list, whether or not I'd have to wait for another hostel to close etc, and also to clarify the terms of the service agreement as to why I would have to pay double the fee for hostelbookers while using their affiliate.

I never heard back from them.

I really want to be listed on the site (no longer for ethical purposes however I see that's pretty well a sham) but I refused to be bullied into services I don't need... Has anyone else had this experience or can shed some light on the situation?

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ggentile

13 years

Dear Blind Eye,

Your original email was responded to straight away and your current email has been responded to first thing yesterday morning. In this email there is a detailed explanation of how and why HostelBookers operates in the way that we do. The opportunities we offer, try to ensure that all of our partners (properties) have an equal and fair chance of generating bookings. We do this rather than just listing every possible property in a destination since this is of no benefit to either our partners or our customers.

Hopefully the email has resolved any issues you have. Should you have any further questions we are more than happy to discuss your concerns with you.

Many thanks

HostelBookers

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uktrail

13 years

The opportunities we offer, try to ensure that all of our partners (properties) have an equal and fair chance of generating bookings. We do this rather than just listing every possible property in a destination since this is of no benefit to either our partners or our customers.
HostelBookers

Since Hostelbookers is well respected among travellers, many travellers use them not just for booking, but to find out what hostels exist in a city or area, and what reviewers say about them. Therefore, I would hope and expect that every hostel that applies to be included in Hostelbookers receives an equal opportunity to be so (unless, of course, the hostel has been demonstrated to have serious defects). So if Blindeye runs a hostel in Prague, I would like to see it listed with the others. (If however he represents a guest house that has only private rooms, I am not interested in whether he is in or not.)

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timh

13 years

Think word of mouth - a good hostel, with happy guests - one of which says to another 'how did you hear about us?' ...

Perhaps, Blind-eye's hostel is 'the place to be!' with hip, happy, travellers - spreading the word across the world - I find it hard to believe hostelbookers would want to limit its potential - for both revenue AND as a reputable, knowledgeable - complete booking service, by not listing it.

uktrail is right. If a customer reviews accom options for prague online today (and blind eye is not listed) - then they turn up in Prague tomorrow and discover blind-eye's option for themselves (and have a delightful stay) then hostelbookers reputation is potentially damaged.

a bad word goes further than a good one.

-for what it's worth.
Tim

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Blind Eye

13 years

I've just checked for the sake of accuracy and it was definitely a few days that elapsed between my applying and the "Automated" response, long enough for me to have a rather protracted dialog about it with an industry friend I do some travel writing for. When I responded back it was another 7 days until I was contacted again with some information, coincidentally shortly after I posted this subject on the forum.

I have no reason to spread false information, all I want is my property represented (currently the top rated hostel by percentage points in Prague on hostelworld reviewed glowingly by honest-to-goodness real folks from all over the world and with any luck will stay that way) and to be treated in a professional manner. Pushing me into a listing with your sister site (anytrip.com) at twice the booking rate and encouraging me to sign a document which could potentially in its phrasing force me to pay the same 20% for hostelbookers services struck me as going against everything I thought hostelbookers stood for.

My last letter from you says I will have to wait until another hostel closes to get a listing, I'm happy to have that clarified at least I'm not holding my breath.

I genuinely bare no malice and I'm not angry. I'm just a bit shocked, I started this thread because I had gotten no response back for some time and I was hoping someone could explain the situation for me, maybe the initial sign up was for quality control purposes, I didn't know and really wanted to. I didn't think I would get a response directly from you but I appreciate it.

With all due respect, and I do respect what you do, I will agree with some other folks here in saying if you were genuinely interested in fairness to your customers and the properties you list it would make sense to list everything in a city that is available then let the ratings and people decide what is of value. What does it cost you? I put my heart, soul, and everything I own into this project, all you have to do is reap the benefits. It seems both counter-productive and counter-intuitive to do otherwise.

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balibali

13 years

It does seem strange that they limit the number of places. It should be easy for customers to generate a list of which places are best, by user ratings and reviews, so they don't have to scroll through every place. Our experience with HB so far has been good and we have had a couple of bookings through them.

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Juleslee

13 years

Hi,

I've signed up with Hostel Bookers too, and yes, was told i also ad to sign up with Anytrip.com to get listed and decided, what the heck just do it. But honestly was not happy with the 20% they charge, The highest so far....

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rmzhao82

13 years

I am currently have a bit of trouble with hostelbookers too, although different circumstances. I did a hostel sign-up about a month ago and still haven't heard from them! Hostelworld began working with me immediately, which I found surprising. Other people on the forum seem to have had the opposite experience.

Anyways, I emailed HB's customer service twice and did receive a reply that someone would be in touch with me soon (that was about two weeks ago). Our hostel isn't very big, 54 beds, and I'm thinking for the time being I might just rely on hostelworld, our own website, and word of mouth.

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bique

13 years

Totally agreed with rmzhao82, we have the same experiences ..Hostelbookers should improve thier service , not robotic way , more personalized and assigned teams to take care of hostel partners.

Hostelworld is much better with fast reply and more effective service .

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caveman

13 years

Hostelbookers is indeed difficult to deal with and we are thinking to take off our property from their website. I firstly I thought that it is just me and my personal feeling and a vibe I got. But over the past 6 months since we registered we encountered the following:

- After we sign up, we were immediately contacted, the lady we spoke to was friendly and she even uploaded all the information by herself online so we did not have to do anything. BUT when in few months in the middle of a busy summer season we requested a small change, there was no friendly lady anymore, just an email with a do-it-yourself manual. Thank you, but I would rather learn it myself when the season just started and we were not so busy than when I had a reception full of people.
- We requested a paid listing for 1 month. After few days we received a response saying book 3 months. I said no, thank you, just one month, cause I need to boost just the one month off-season sales. No response for few days and then finally and invoice and then right after a message saying please ignore the invoice, we sold just out today and you can have a paid listing in 3 months. Was it our fault that they put us on hold seeing better profit from someone else? (who BTW after we checked online is one of the dodgiest apartment on the island ran by people who I believe never stayed in a hostel, neither probably traveled outside Greece!).

We also dislike the following about the comments:

- People are encouraged to comment on what they disliked in your hostel. Believe me, people always find a reason to complain about silly things (in our case ridiculously silly such as: only 2 FREE shuttle buses to the town that is actually a walking distance from the hostel or no wife working - when they try it inside the cave rooms that are buried 15 meters deep in the ground, while having another 10 000 sqm of a property outside in common areas with 3 wifi rooters!!!). Many times I wish I could say I DISLIKE the client.
- There is no space for expressing owner's opinion. What is bad, because you have no chance to explain anything, or apologize. And what is even worse, sometimes it is your neighbor who is a competition and makes a fake booking and leaves you a bad review and a bad rating. Surprising, but this is how it is in most of the vacation destinations when every small apartment owner gets listed on hostelbookers. the property in this case has 0 protection.
- Most of the time people do not leave their name with the comment and it is just impossible to track back who actually left the review, when the person stayed in the hostel, in what room and who was at the reception. Without this function it is impossible actually to improve your services as a hostel cause you have no idea what really went wrong! So what's then the point of the review if there can't be any improvement?
- The reviews stay forever on the website, they do not expire after lest say 6-12 months what is a usual duration of a season. With a time every place has a chance to improve or on the other hand decrease the qualities, but without this function the reviews and especially the rating can never reflect the reality.

I addressed these questions to the relevant hostelbookers staff, I was forwarded to customer service that never got back to us.

Also the last remark, in our opinion the comparative advertisement towards Hostelworld is very unprofessional. I read the article about the "8.7% cheaper" (http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/europe/hostelworld-hostelbookers-price-comparison-study) and I believe it is bit misleading. In our case most of the sales come from hostelworld so we have no intention to go lower with the price there. While on hostelbookers we did go lower in past just to see if it will sell more, but it didn't make much of a difference.

This might sound as a bad post, but ironically, compared to the hostelbookers website, the HB management can actually now comment! :)

Veronika from Caveland, Santorini

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lasagna

13 years

Im really sorry for you blind eye... a friend of mine was having the same "problem" in a city in the northeast in Brazil... since I've been with them for a while, I emailed my "buddy" there and told them about my friends hostel, and they put him in... so they took my word for it...

Buuuut, I have to say. I appreciate them doing that. Right now in Brazil, Hostelworld opened an office, and they are adding any sort of properties they can to the site.

We are about to send an email to the CFO and CEO, because they just added two student houses, that decide to sell their 2-bed dorms (what) on Hostelworld... Meaning that its not a business but they have some spare beds, so why not sell it on hostelworld?

The new manager in Brazil actually believes that the more properties in the city, the more we all sell. but he fails to realize that the number of customers haven't increased in the same proportion as the number of the beds they've added in the last year... So most of the hostels had to move on to booking.com as well....

I dont wanna be listed on bookings.com, i wanna be listed on hostelworld and hostel bookers only. thats where the people i wanna work for is. not hotel looking people that decides to try a hostel because its cheap...

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