Well well well. After 4 months of writing about best industry practices throughout Australia/ New Zealand, this wandering blogger is back at Hostel Management HQ, when not busy running Pacific Tradewinds Hostel. I've never been one to slow down (I did inventory last night at 2am because...well, counting boxes of tea and trashbags seemed like a good idea at the time) so the chance to take on new projects always sounds enticing.
I have been using Hostelmanagement.com for years, long before I had the serendipitous chance to meet those involved with the site. I have learned so much through the knowledge, ideas, and advice from others that it was easy to say yes to helping with its newest feature: Virtual Unconference Panel Discussions! As mentioned in the October Newsletter, last January I was involved with a test to show the potential of this new technology, via Google Hangouts.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing the site's blog this summer and learning from others, but I am one of thousands in this industry. The mission of this site is to collaborate and learn from each other to build up the strongest industry possible. One way this is done is through Unconferences held throughout the year in various parts of the world. As these are sometimes limiting due to physical location, we wanted another option to involve more people. These Unconference style panel discussions will allow hostel owners and managers from all over the world to discuss relevant topics, for the widest audience possible. Our goal is to have worldwide participation for a diversity of opinions and ideas, as well as a large audience to learn from these ideas. My role will simply be moderating these interesting discussions.
The first panel discussion will be on Tuesday, 29 October, at 17:00 UTC. The first topic will be "Hostel Reviews & Reputation". If you are interested in joining this discussion as a panelist, please email me here. The discussion will be streamed live on YouTube and questions can be submitted via our Twitter feed. We hope to see you there!
Update: Check out the first panel discussion here.
