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Hostels Accepting Bitcoin

Hostel Trends and News

Darren Overby started this discussion 11 years 3 months ago

I have recently become interested in Bitcoin and it's potential to transform the travel industry. At my hostel, Pacific Tradewinds in San Francisco, we started excepting Bitcoin as payment and it's been a very interesting experiment so far. Unlike credit cards, there are no transaction fees associated with accepting Bitcoin. And, because Bitcoin is so new, it has exposed the hostel to a completely new clientele (mostly computer geeks and hackers). In addition, I have been contacted by journalists who are keen to learn more about businesses who are accepting this new currency.

Then today I read about a travel agency in Bulgaria called Simply Travel who is using Bitcoin to pay their accommodation providers in other countries. Immediately I began thinking about how Bitcoin could become a real game changer for the travel industry.

Gregor Amon, the CEO at Simply Travel:

“In the travel industry, we transfer a lot of money internationally. It’s less of an issue in Europe where a SEPA bank transfer is free and usually at the receiver’s account within 24 hours, but everything outside of Europe is a big pain,”

The complete article is located here.

For example, what if a traveler paid hostel A cash at the front desk in exchange for a voucher that entitles them to a free stay at hostel B. Hostel A then only needs to send Bitcoin to hostel B to transfer the money? What if this was all easily handled by the front desk software?

Anyone else out there considered accepting Bitcoin?

If you are not sure what Bitcoin is, watch this video.

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DarrenOverby

11 years

John: We publish the rates for payment in Bitcoin on a page of our website. This table automatically updates as the value of Bitcoin changes.

Gordo: I agree Bitcoin is presently not very stable. For these reason I don't hold onto very much of it. My strategy is to basically spend it when I receive it. Some merchants use services like Bitpay which results in a cash deposit to your bank account for every Bitcoin transaction received. Of course there is a cost (about 1%) for this service, so I prefer the direct method.

I had never heard of the hawala system. Bitcoin is peer to peer, therefore a lot like cash (except it can be sent online) where as hawala seems to involve brokers.

The number of merchants and vendors accepting Bitcoin is growing. Bitpay says they have over 10,000 merchants using their system. Here's a video showing the experience of buying cupcakes with Bitcoin.

I got to get back to work so I can't participate in this thread too much more. Definitely, Bitcoin is not for everyone, but so far it's been interesting for me.

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ChrisWeHostels

11 years

@Darren,

I am curious how you price beds in Bitcoin. Do you convert the dollar value to bitcoin?

@Gordo,

The volatility of Bitcoin currently does not lend itself to purchasing goods. It is like buying something with gold. If gold is skyrocketing, no one will want to use it to buy anything because they feel the value is going to keep going up. Why buy something for 1 bitcoin @ $100 today when tomorrow you could buy something for 1 bitcoin @ $150? There is no central bitcoin bank regulating the supply and keeping the value stable. As long as there is a finite amount, the value will be more volatile than that of a traditional currency.

That being said, some big investors, who are way smarter than I am, have been making investments in bitcoin companies, so they must feel that bitcoin, or some other virtual currency, will eventually be a valid form of payment. http://www.businessinsider.com/fred-wilson-heres-why-im-investing-in-bitcoin-2013-5 http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/06/bitcoin-bits.html

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DarrenOverby

11 years

Chris, I use this to create the table on my site. Yes, all prices are set un USD and the script auto calculates the amount in Bitcoin.

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ChrisWeHostels

11 years

Cool! Thanks

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Rucksack Brian

10 years

10 Hotels and Hostels that accept Bitcoin

Not on the list:
#11 - Pacific Tradewinds

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DarrenOverby

10 years

Ack! How on earth did we not make this list????

We have been accepting Bitcoin at our hostel and hackerspace for over a year now. We have been hosting a Bitcoin for Merchants meetup to help merchants join the Bitcoin revolution. We are even working to make our hackerspace the site of the first Bitcoin ATM machine in California! http://www.san-francisco-hostel.com http://RockITCoLabs.com

Show us some love man! :-)

Thanks for the heads up Brian. We have wrote to the author.

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slushysnow

10 years

I've been tempted by bitcoin, I've used it in the past, but it's the volatility of the value that makes me wary of using it...

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bluealmondhostel

10 years

We started accepting bit/litecoin a few months ago, we have yet to receive a single guest that wants to pay with it!
I think the list was compiled from www.bitcoin.travel information.

I don't know if you are aware, but Argentinians traveling abroad have to pay a 30% tax on top of everything they buy using a credit/debit card. Bitcoin makes sense for them, because they can buy bitcoin in Argentinean pesos and then pay for the accommodation.

In our case we offer a 10% discount if you pay with bitcoin.

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greenhorn

10 years

The seemingly miraculous discovery of about $116 million in missing Bitcoin, or 200,000 coins, late Thursday underscored the rickety early infrastructure that the digital currency is still trying to overcome.

In a posting on its website in both Japanese and English, the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox announced that it had found the coins in an “old-format wallets,” the virtual currency equivalent of finding money in another pair of pants.

In its statement from its chief executive, Mark Karpeles, the company said that after it filed for bankruptcy, it began researching the wallets that were used before June 2011. That, the company said, is when it discovered the coins, which represent about 24 percent of the coins that were missing when the site failed.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/mt-gox-says-it-has-found-200000-b...

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bluealmondhostel

10 years

From what I understand the hack was to an intermediary, not to the bitcoin platform itself.

if i bank gets hacked, you lose faith on the bank, not the money.

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