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The idea of opening a hostel is making me crazy excited

Introduce Yourself

Sam De Raes started this discussion 7 years 2 months ago

My name is Sam. I am 24 years old and most of my life I have lived in Belgium. The small country in between Holland and France. After I graduated from high school in Public Relations, I decided to work abroad for a few years. Only in summer though since I was a holiday entertainer.

I worked in Spain, Egypt and Greece. It was such an amazing experience, that I was untill recently conviced I had already past the best years of my life. Now I am working in the corporate world, representing the largest spirit company in the world.
To be fair, I love my job, I travers Belgium teaching bartenders all about hospitality and cocktails. But I couldn't bare the thought of doing trafficjams and targets and meetings the rest of my life, so the thought of going back into tourism has been growing inside my head. Every day more and more. Last summer I was in Corfu staying in a hostel, and from that moment on I started to build my own hostel already. Plenty of ideas later, I realise I have to start somewhere, sometime soon.

That is why I am here, to get some help and ideas from people with more experience. I know what tourism is, I worked 65 hours a week, talking to guests not included, still the laidback atmosphere is amazing. I want to start my own hostel within the next 4 years, somewhere around the equator. Questions or advice, please respond

Thanks Sam

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Rucksack Brian

7 years

Hi Sam, welcome to the Hostel Management community!

I love your enthusiasm. It sounds like you are exactly the type of person who would thrive in a hostel atmosphere, and your background will make it really easy for you to adapt to the work.

You’re already off to a great start, too. Writing down all the ideas you have to make your own dream hostel helps to paint a clear picture in your mind of how you want it to be and what you would need in order to achieve it. Every time you have a brilliant idea or you see something you love in another hostel, write it down so you don’t forget to implement it later. Once you start the process of opening the business it is easy to lose track of little details, so those notes will be invaluable to you as you progress. Next comes choosing the location where you would like to live. After that you can start to calculate how much you would need to invest and how much it would cost to run a hostel in your chosen location.

Please keep us updated as the project moves along.

In the meantime, I’m curious which of the hostels you have seen so far has come the closest to the ideal hostel you’re planning for yourself?

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samderaes

7 years

Hi Brian

Thank you for reading through my introduction and already giving me some great tips.
So far I have been staying in very modern hostels in Frankfurt and Barcelona (TOC). On the other hand I have also stayed in an old-school hostel run by a greek family on Corfu. Both we equally great, I do wonder why I have never found a unique location where modern style and down-to-earth 'family' hospitality are combined.
No doubt they do exist, since I believe this might be the most important USP one can own.
I do have a vague idea of where I want to move, but since I have no knowledge of financial state and law of this kind of places, I can't get further then: "Equator-located island, hurricane-free, less expensive then Belgium, authentic culture, laidback state of mind" Everybodies dream I guess :)

Thanks again Brain

Sam

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Rucksack Brian

7 years

Equator-located island, hurricane-free, less expensive then Belgium, authentic culture, laidback state of mind

Sounds like the perfect location!

Some people want their hostel to be luxurious like a palace. Some want it to be rustic like a beach bungalow. And others want every shade of the rainbow in between. If you haven’t found a place that combines a unique location with modern style and down-to-earth 'family' hospitality, then that just means there’s an opportunity for you to create it! That’s the beauty of this industry.

As long as you can find a way to cover the costs (and people find all kinds of creative ways to make things work when they’re inspired) then there’s no reason you can’t combine all of the aspects that make up your vision of the ideal hostel.

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GraideRetreat

7 years

Hi Sam,

Glad to read your message here.

I am owing an old farm in the Ardennes that I am turning into a Hostel. The whole project is just at its very beginnings now.

The location is somehow closer to Brussels than to the equator but I if you are interested to meet in the capital annother day for a chat and ideas exchange, just contact be on FB, for example.

Diana

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SilverSeagull

7 years

Hello Sam, welcome to the community. I hope you will have your ideal hostel sooner. An equator-located hostel with authentic culture sounds great :)

In my opinion, the perfect location for a hostel is a place there you would like to live for yourself. And no one but you knows better where this ideal place could be.

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