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Hosteling in NYC

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waluftig started this discussion 11 years 8 months ago

After hearing Mayor Bloomberg's state of the city address a few months ago during which he announced a plan to make hostels more prevalent in New York City, I have been looking into opening a hostel. Unfortunately, information has been very hard to come by. The mayor's office had little information for me and the internet was not too helpful either; nearly all of the search results were relating to the crackdown on illegal hostels of a few years ago.

Obviously even if this proposal moves along it will take a long time but if I can get involved on the ground floor, I would absolutely love it. I have a ton of friends from all over the world who have told me they really want to visit to New York City but are unable to because of prohibitively high hotel prices and I think everyone should get to see this great city at least once in their lives. As of now I don't really even have an area in which I would like to operate because I don't know any of the limitations or benefits of specific locations so any information at all on hosteling anywhere in NYC (or references to any resources that might have information) would be fantastic. Thank you!

Scott

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ChrisWeHostels

11 years

Hi Scott,

From what I understand, currently there are a few groups working with the city to iron out the specific language for the laws so that hostels will be able to operate. I am not sure when the new laws would go into effect.

As for where in NYC you would like to operate, that depends on a few things, like expected budget, size of the hostel, etc. In general, Manhattan is the most expensive/least amount of space and as you go out to Brooklyn and Queens it gets cheaper and the spaces are generally bigger. The Bronx would be cheap too, but is kind of far away from the NYC hot spots in Manhattan and BK (Staten Island isn't really traveler friendly). Jersey City and Hoboken are good options as well (easy access to the city, cheaper).

I would be happy to go further in depth on this. You can reach me at Chris AT WeHostels DOT COM.

-Chris

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Natalie New York

10 years

Hi, Chris & Scott
I know this post was made one year ago.
I recently start thinking about opening hostel in NY and would like to get information as much as possible.
I would appreciate if you could let me know how to find property (lease), license, permits, and etc.
I have been trying to find through internet for a week, but so far it is difficult.
Any info. will be helpful for me.
Thank you.
Regards,
natalie

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waluftig

10 years

Natalie,

As far as I know, there are still laws preventing for-profit hostels from operating in NYC. The bill introduced by Mayor Bloomberg as he was leaving office has unsurprisingly stalled with the change in administration. I haven't heard of any progress in quite some time. If anyone knows otherwise, feel free to post here.

Scott

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