I've noticed a couple of hostels marketing dorms specifically to women. Here are a couple of examples:
Base Backpackers "Sanctuary Rooms"
"On arrival in your Sanctuary room you will receive a gift pack with quality hair care products and your own personal fluffy towel to use during the duration of your stay. Beds are made up with 5-star quality linen, plush pillows and most Sanctuary bathrooms feature hairdryers and movie star mirrors."
Any other hostels with similar features/marketing?
16 years
I wonder though what a labor court would say about that.
The hostel was providing dorm accommodation for employees, so it just involved moving the employee to the weird guest's room.
At the time I was working for a competing hostel and the owner didn't have any rules like that. If we would throw a problem guest out, the owner was likely to hire him as an employee the next day :confused:
(That hostel experience was one of the inspirations for creating HostelManagement.com.)
16 years
That hostel experience was one of the inspirations for creating HostelManagement.com.
Ha! Bad work experience inspires us about how to make things better! :D
15 years
Hmm, see, I as a chick I appreciate the "female only" option. I don't always want to undress in front of strange men.:o
But the luxurious part? Go to a spa if you want fancy shampoos and fluffy pillows. No one should be going to a hostel for a pampering experience, and I'd wonder how much less I could be paying were it not for the frills if I saw it.
15 years
I'm not sure about luxury but in the planning for our hostel at the moment, we are considering large mirrors, hair dryers and decent lighting for the bathrooms and in the female only dorms, we are considering full length mirrors as well. Is there anything else that I should look at?
Fluffy pillows and fancy shampoos is their own responsibility! :)
15 years
Guys, honestly, it is discriminative. The whole girls dorms over all and especially these silly additional couple of special treatment things. We do have girls section which even has it own door (!), if you are not staying in one of these special dorms you will not be able to enter the corridor even. In my humble opinion it is not the most efficient way of using your meterage. It does not sell that good (at least here in Prague), I could have had another group in rather than having half of these beds unoccupied and most of all I hate the idea of making people look different.
15 years
Ha! Bad work experience inspires us about how to make things better! :D
Yep, and I'm inspired a lot so far..... :D
Back to topic: The hostel where I work right now has no female only dorms, it's mainly because of the relatively small size (around 50 dorm beds). we handle that kind of informal, e.g. when we notice that there are let's say 5 asian/korean shy girls travelling together we put them in a room with no guys, if it's possible.
In the bigger chain hostel i worked before we did it like klaus described it, it worked well and was much appreciated.
I even had some male-only requests, as far as I remember also from someone from asia. So for me it appears to be a good idea to have some female only rooms if you can afford it. There are definitely some cultural or religious reasons why people ask for it. We shouldn't judge it, but accomodate the guests demands ;)
but this whole fluffy pillow thing to me is as well exxagerated as discriminating as already pointed out.
15 years
I'm not sure about luxury but in the planning for our hostel at the moment, we are considering large mirrors, hair dryers and decent lighting for the bathrooms and in the female only dorms, we are considering full length mirrors as well. Is there anything else that I should look at?
Fluffy pillows and fancy shampoos is their own responsibility! :)
Hairdryers are a great idea. I've often missed the ability to make it dry quickly, and even if I wanted to haul one around the voltage difference would make it impossible. I can't think of anything else, really, as my travels to hostels usually involve a plan for minimalism.
15 years
I guess it is an extra service....No one is putting a gun on anyone's head telling them to go into a "higher comfort female dorm". It is optional and what hostel owners do is opening the range of services/options to their customers. All this is ONLY valid, if you also offer the traditional female dorms as well, if your option for females is only the higher comfort ones, then that's something else
But, We might agree saying that if girls get something like this, why can't guys get it too....But if we would, what would you put in a guys dorm that is as essential as a hair dryer for girls....
15 years
I'd hardly say that tailoring a product to a market segment is discrimination against all those not included in that segment.
If the hostel offers special girl facilities, to have more girls, so the hostel gets a reputation amoung guys as having heaps of girls, that's a bit tacky.
Considering the extra facilities are more prominent in the bigger chain hostels, these moves probably stems from enough feedback/research to have realised that the level of creature comforts in your average hostel was putting some girls off.
Anyway, if it's making some guests feel secure and happy, that's great. Something to aim for IMHO.
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