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Getting Top Hostel Reviews: what hostels can learn from Portugal Hostels

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Josh started this discussion 15 years 1 month ago

I've just had the opportunity to spend a few days visiting top-rated hostels in Portugal. Portugal consistently has a disproportionate number of the highest rated hostels on Hostelworld. Four of the top 10 hostels on Hostelworld for the 2008 Hoscars were Portugal hostels.

I've written up some of the reasons of how I think these hostels are getting their high ratings. This report is posted in the Members' Chat area which can only be viewed by HostelManagement.com users who have posted 50 or more solid forum posts. The reason why this content is only available to frequent posters is to encourage more participation in the HostelManagement.com forums :)

Here's the link to the writeup -- it is visible to anyone who has made at least 50 solid posts on HostelManagement.com:
http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forums/what-hostels-around-world-can-learn-from-portugal-hostels.html

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hostel designer

15 years

I'm currently doing my interior design thesis project on reinventing American hostels and had this exact question (among many others!).

This website, the forum component especially, has been hands down the greatest resource I've found thus far for my research. I am putting together a proposal for my project this semester, which will be a very comprehensive document covering the history of hosteling, its evolution, changing trends, where it's going, case studies of successful hostels worldwide, cricital role of social media, why the US is so behind, how that can be changed, etc, etc.

The design phase of the project will be in the spring 2010 semester - I will be designing a modular "prototype" of hostels that can be applied in any city, but regionalism will also be a critical factor. For the purposes of this project, my site will be located in Washington, DC (where I am located currently).

I am hoping to turn my thesis project into reality sooner rather than later. I will be graduating in May 2010 and will be "flashpacking" throughout Europe this coming summer, and hopefully gain some experience working in hostels in the process.

Anyway, I digress... This is my first forum post and hope to reach 50 posts soon so I can gain entry into little gems of forum threads such as this. In the meantime, is there any way we can negotiate? :p I would be happy to share my research with the hostelmanagement.com community in the coming months. You could consider it an investment...

Thanks for such a great website!

Natalie

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santa klaus

15 years

Anyway, I digress... This is my first forum post and hope to reach 50 posts soon so I can gain entry into little gems of forum threads such as this. In the meantime, is there any way we can negotiate? :p I would be happy to share my research with the hostelmanagement.com community in the coming months. You could consider it an investment...

Hey Natalie,

That thread is mostly about how hostels are run, not how they´re designed.
The members chat was created when we (the regular users) thought that there are too many lurkers on this forum who never contribute anything. We wanted to encourage them to share some of their ideas as well, not ONLY stealing ours. If they don´t, we wanted to have a space where we can debate things our competitors (or our bosses :D) shouldn´t know about.

IMHO, hostels get great review if the guests get a few perks they didn´t expect. In our case, when we started 10 years ago, that was: a free welcome drink in the hostel bar and all rooms with ensuite bathroom. 10 years ago that was awesome, now you get that almost everywhere and you don´t get a lot of praise for it any more.

Those top-rated hostels in Portugal also offer something nobody expects.

why the US is so behind

Or the UK, for that matter (not in terms of quantity though, just quality).

I´m waiting in awe to hear some plausible reasons.

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Diogo

15 years

Well since I'm from Portugal I'm very interested in reading what such experienced people from other countries, think about the portuguese reality (specially Lisbon).

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hostel designer

15 years

Hi Santa Klaus,

Thank you for your reply! I completely agree that some of these threads should be restricted to regular contributors. Hopefully I'll be able to offer something here that you experts haven't already covered. :)

And exactly my point about US hostels being a few decades behind! The extra perks you mention that are pretty standard now in European countries are unheard of here, at least from my experiences thus far, and there is no reason why they should be sub par. It has more to do with American culture and the stigma and misunderstandings associated with hostels, which many existing US hostels only exacerbate. I've gotten many good starting points from this forum that I will further explore and share with you guys (maybe the select few ;) ).

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