How to make hostelling more popular in the USA?

I can see your point, but if you want to run a decent hostel there´s no way around a rule which excludes the sorts of people Ria described.

So - it is a matter of communication not leave the wrong impression that domestic travellers are not wanted - just domestic non-travellers.

Absolutely. If you want to run a decent hostel, you have to exclude those which don't fit to this criteria. Even here we have lots of locals trying to get a bed with us but we just say sorry, backpackers only, just because they'd ruin the atmosphere what this community provides.

But if you just want to run a cheap accommodation, that's up to you. :rolleyes:

hehehe, there could be a reason those cities dont have hostels; quite a few made it into Forbes' 'most miserable cities in the US' list.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/11/americas-most-miserable-cities-business-beltway-miserable-cities_slide_2.html
detroit, memphis, st louis & cleveland (the mistake by the lake?!) are all there. but it is from the point of view of residents rather than tourists. im pretty sure large chunks of the developing world would be considered 'miserable' but still attracts swarms of tourists.

Just to add my 2 cents :-)

Problems we face (we're in Canada, but I do believe the problems are quite similar to the US):
1. Most locals think "homeless shelter" when they see 'hostel'.
2. Many government services think the above or some other bad image, so getting all your approvals and licenses can be quite a job (we had a very reluctant fire marshal since he thought a hostel meant "18-year old drunk people" and saw a major fire hazard!)
3. Lack of recognition for hostels from government services. We had to follow B&B regulations to get licensed, and Nova Scotia is not the onlye province like that! Some provinces or municipalities basically make it impossible for hostels to even start up.
4. Transportation is a big issue. For many places you need a car if you want to get anywhere.

As far as cost goes: we've actually had many people from the US stay with us last year with the economic turndown that stayed in a hostel for the first time ever, trying to save some money. In other words: we do still offer some financial advantage there. A whole other issue came up: educating your guests about what a hostel actually is! We had people leave all their stuff in the shared bathroom because they simply didn't get the 'shared bathroom' thing (and taking up all the shelf space). We also had people telling other guests to leave 'their' living room.... (No, I'm not kidding...). Finally, we had somebody tell me that I should really 'clean out that fridge if I wanted him to use it'. He meant that there was food of other guests in the fridge.... We ended up giving every single guest a tour of the hostel with full explanation of how things work.

So basically the MAJOR issue to work on is to get locals to understand what a 'hostel' is. Once that gets known, government services might just ease up and become more accommodating for hostels. That would lower the operating costs (it is hard to be viable when you have to follow regulations that are not meant for hostels) and create better regulations, which would encourage new hostels to start up, which would make hostels more known again, which would increase the number of guests coming from Canada and US, which would in turn create more business, which would create more hostels and maybe even end up attracting some tour businesses (and solve part of the transportation issue).

In my opinion the only way to get hostels more known is to work together.

Completely agree there! After all, what is the ultimate reason of existence for hostels? Maybe we should simply look at that when deciding 'what is a hostel and what not' and when marketing hostels...