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Making Extra Availability by Moving Women to Female Dorm

Front Desk Operations

Josh started this discussion 14 years 8 months ago

This is a fairly common thing that happens in high season:

There is one female dorm left in the hostel.
A male guest shows up as a walk-in.
Hostel tells walk-in that the hostel is full.

An easy work-around is to find a booking for a female guest in a co-ed dorm and move the booking into the empty female bed. That frees up a spot in a co-ed dorm for the walk-in guest.

I've seen hostel front desks say, "sorry, we only have one female dorm available."

Knowing that the bed will fill up either way, the hostel could just tell the guest there is no availability, but there's also a chance to make a very happy guest who might otherwise not know where else to go... :)

The only possible drawbacks:

There is a chance that the female guest wants a co-ed dorm.
There is a chance that the guest is male, but has a name that sounds female in your language. E.g., "Aki" is commonly a Japanese girl, but can also be a guy.
There is a chance the name has a typo in it. E.g., the guy said "Paule: P-A-U-L-E" on the phone and the front desk typed "Paula" into the booking.
There is a chance that the female is traveling with friends and moving the booking will split her group... which is a good reason to always mark people who book together as a group so they don't accidentally get split.
You prefer not to book the last bed(s) to accommodate extensions or emergencies.

I would typically do it. Is there anyone who thinks it isn't a good idea? Any other tips for rearranging guests in high season?

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flaviopezzini

14 years

soy1 - I guess it all depends on a variety of things. I agree there is a niche for female only dorms and it's up to the hostel owner to explore it or not. It's more of a cultural thing I guess. There are tons of hostels out there, many of them only have coed dorms and they do fine.

Honestly I remember myself as a guest ditching a hostel exactly because it had female only dorms, in my mind I prefer the open minded atmosphere, so I could argue this could be yet another niche, the open minded people :)

I also believe it must be harder to have female only dorms when you have 20 beds or less.

Last but not least, please take my opinion as grain of salt, as I do not own any hostel. I speak merely behind my experience as a guest, and on the friend backpacker ladies I know.

Cheers!!:D

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soi1david

14 years

No worries,
less than a 20 bed , I imagine would make it a bit limiting. that's why I mentioned our capacity.

In my selecting a stay at many hostels, I left some for varied reasons..But because it had a female only dorm was never one.

We have an 8 bed Female only dorm so that's 18% of our beds. Our % of females would easily be twice that. We actually have more of the females choosing mixed dorms than the female only dorm. Being "Open Minded" We serve both preferences. :)

there have been a few times when I saw that the 8 bed female could cause me to refuse male guest, So in advance, I closed availability of 4 beds in the female dorm then moved the female only bookings to a 4 bed dorm thus allowing me to utilize the female dorm as a mixed dorm.

"I agree there is a niche for female only dorms"
http://www.hostels.com/hostels/new-york/pink-hostels::female-only/34526
http://www.hostels.com/hostels/rome/orsa-maggiore-for-women-only/23973

Imagine advertising a Male only hostel.... Now there's a niche.:rolleyes:

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