Hi there. I'm looking at buying a hostel in Sydney Australia. One of my main concerns is that the hostel currently has some awful reviews. Based on the current reviews, there is no way I would stay there!
Now, I obviously have big plans to improve the hostel, but I'm concerned that the damage may already be done.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
14 years
Change the name, put a note on all the booking sites that renovations are being done and new management is installed. At least with the bad ratings it may be a way to get the hostel much cheaper than if it was already a well run one. Ratings will change overall but if you do fix the big problems and work on the little things constantly, these will improve fairly quickly. Good luck with it.
14 years
We bought a low rated hostel (HW 65%) and turned it around in a few months. It was a big job. We did not change the name as it was our second hostel and we did not want use our brand until we were comfortable and happy with our progress. In the first year were improved to almost HW 90% with over 600 reviews in that year. The next year we won the top hostel in North America (the Hoscar) award from Hostelworld in recognition of over 1000 guests reviews in the year giving us an average of over 93%. The difference between 90% and 93% is immense. (We even hit 95% in April this year but have since dropped to around 90%.) Maintaining high review averages is very difficult especially after you win an award as there are a vocal few travelers every once in a while become hostel "experts" and will compare every feature of your hostel against the "best in class" that they have experienced, other unannounced hostel staff book with you for a look/review opportunity, staff may lose abit of focus etc. One fun thing that we noticed is that our location average review score in Niagara Falls went from 75% to 95%.
There are many things to consider when doing this. Hostelworld and the other sites will have to be convinced that this is a bonfide change in ownership and direction. They are leary of hostels changing there name when the reviews get bad. My suggestion is to wait a while until you know your HW buddy, until you know the comings and goings of the travelers and until you have some buisness traction. You don't want to have your new name/business associated with the old one until the most obvious negative remnants of the old one are well taken care. Don't put your sign on until you are proud of the place when you walk in. In the mean time tell all/everyone walking in that you are operating under new ownership and new staff. (Get rid of all the old staff if you can...) Make sure that your booking engine descriptions are updated to include the "Under New Ownership" tag prominently. Put your name on it after: your reno's are done, you know your market comings and goings, you really understand your competition and make sure the staff knows what they are supposed to be doing to sell your brand.
In a very competitive, very guest savvy market like Sydney you want to ensure that you do not stumble on entry. So I say wait awhile.
14 years
Thanks so much for the quick and detailed replies. Great to hear from someone who has been there and done that.
Great advice re: waiting on changing the name.
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