14 years
Let's hope they put a few more people on the ground to properly check out their client hostels and the rumours of faked reviews. It would be good to put that one to bed - especially on this forum!
Hostelworld (WRI) Preparing for Major Expansion with 50 New Employees
Hostel Trends and News
Internet company to hire 50 people in next two years (18 July 2010)
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/internet-company-to-hire-50-people-in-next-two-years-50602.html
Some interesting excerpts:
Web Reservations International (WRI),the Irish internet firm that was bought for $340 million last year, plans to hire 50 people as part of a multimillion euro expansion.
The firm employs about 100 people, but plans to hire 50 more over the next two years, with the majority of the jobs in Dublin.
It is also opening a second data centre as part of what Mooney called ‘‘a fairly significant multimillion euro investment’’.
He said that the company was refocusing on its core hostel booking business, targeting older travellers as well as expansion into new markets.
‘‘There is still huge scope to expand. Asia and South America are really taking off for us," said Mooney.
The Dublin firm sold €350 million worth of accommodation in 2008, generating revenues of €38 mi l l ion and operating profits of €19.6 million.
Mooney said that the firm had ‘‘a good year’’ last year, with an increase in revenues and a further double-digit increase in revenues in the first half of this year.
Hel l man & Friedman bought WRI in November last year for about $340 million in cash, yielding massive windfalls for its founders and backers.
Mooney and the management team have retained some shares in the firm and there is also a staff share scheme.
They're hiring mostly programmers and content people, as well as more management. The article says they're building full versions of Hostelworld in non-English languages.
- Comments
14 years
There have some replies to this survey already:
http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/hostels/cheating-on-hostel-reviews/
I'll post a full update in a couple of weeks after the newsletter goes out and there are more replies... :)
I think Hostelworld needs more people to handle the number of new hostels opening. In some cities, hostels are getting turned away from listing their hostels on Hostelworld. Since Hostelworld controls most online hostel bookings, not being listed there can kill a hostel business before it even gets off the ground...
Small business entrepreneurs are investing in opening hostels, and finally, when they are ready to open the doors, Hostelworld says, "we aren't listing any new hostels in your city." It's not a good situation...
14 years
The article says they're building full versions of Hostelworld in non-English languages.
Hallelujah.
14 years
Hallelujah.
What languages do you think they need? Maybe German, Spanish, Japanese?
14 years
German would be a good start. The German version of their website is... no comment. There are almost 100 million native German speakers in Europe: I can´t understand how a market like that can be ignored so long. Germans are addicted to travelling!
They didn´t even own hostelworld.de until I told them who did. They need to open a branch in Berlin; they could also outsource heaps of work to that one: office space and labor costs are much cheaper in Berlin than in Dublin.
There are enough hostels who have their booking engine on their own website: this feeds HW with new customers. If they want to turn them into frequent users they have to have a German version of their newsletter much more than a good German version of their website. Germans make lots of short trips all the time, so newsletters about how cheap hostels in Brazil are seem pretty useless: it would be much better to feature cities within easy reach of Germans. Germans want good customer service - so far there is almost none at all. They still charge all their fees in US Dollars - you lose a few cents with each booking; this drives Germans crazy. We don´t care about the few cents, but it looks dodgy.
Repeat: it´s a huge market, but you can´t really tap it if you don´t understand it. You can´t understand it without having people on the ground.
The same is probably true for Korea and Japan.
Spanish: of course. Spanish is spoken in 20 countries, not including the USA, where it will be the majority language in quite a few states pretty soon.
14 years
The same is probably true for Korea and Japan.
I was surprised at the number of Korean travelers at one hostel I worked at. There is probably a lot of potential. In Korea, it seems like they are already familiar with the concept of sharing a room with strangers (jjimjilbang)...
14 years
I wonder if this is one of the new sites:
http://www.hostelworld.nl/
Seen via Twitter:
http://twitter.com/hostelworld_nl
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