10 years
This is heavily affecting small hostels who have a smaller number of rooms.
It shows that they only want the big hostels on hostelworld and hostelbookers.
HOSTELWORLD & HOSTELBOOKERS REMOVING ALL PARTIAL AVAILABLILTY!!! URGENT!!!
Hostel Trends and News
To all hostel owners and managers,
This is an URGENT notice to all owners and managers currently using the Hostelworld and Hostelbookers booking agent. It has recently been brought to my attention that both these booking agents, which most of us loath, but use anyway, have removed the "partial availability" option when guests are trying to book beds with you. Just to explain, if a guest is trying to book a bed in an 8 bed dorm for two nights, and you have no beds for the second night in the 8 bed dorm, it will give the guest the "There is no availability at this hostel for the selected dates". This means that even if you have beds in your hostel in a different room for that second night, the guest has no way to know this, therefor, there is no longer the possablilty of staying in multiple rooms during a stay.
I have contacted Hostelworld directly and was told that there were a number of complaints by guests that despite the fact that they were aware they had booked multiple rooms for their stay, they were unhappy that they had to change rooms, and so Hostelworld and Bookers decided to remove this option from the booking engine.
This, as far as I am concerned, is OUTRAGOUS........something has to be done. The only way we can change this is to all band together and write Hostelworld and Hostelbookers and complain about this. I have already contacted a variety of hostels around europe, to try and get as many people as possible to try and help this to get changed back to the way it was.
This change has already affected our business, and will only hurt yours. I urge all of you to contact your hostelworld and hostelbookers rep and voice your opinion. Better yet, write an email as well and lets get this changed back as sooon as possible!!!
Thanks for taking the time to read this guys, it is very important!
Kyle
- Comments
10 years
It shows that they only want the big hostels on hostelworld and hostelbookers.
I think that they will find out in the long run that small hostels are very important. The more hostels WRI lose on their websites, the more reason backpackers will have to use alternate booking sites:
"Hostelworld doesn't list all the hostels, but [other website] does."
10 years
As I understand it, a hostel will still show up as long as at least one of their room types is available for the full period that the traveler requested. The alternative would involve the traveler changing rooms at least once during their stay, right? This could be potentially irritating for both guest and hostel, but at least they would have that choice.
As Hostels mentioned, perhaps this will just encourage more travelers to check other booking sites. (What a perfect time to remind your guests of the benefits of booking directly!)
It used to really bother me when HW would take a booking request that the hostel could not fulfill (not enough beds for all travelers, etc) and sell whatever availability they did have for that hostel rather than lose the booking. Despite the clear reservation confirmation, guests would still arrive expecting to get what they had initially requested instead of what they actually booked. This change seems like an attempt to address a similar situation.
It shows that they only want the big hostels on hostelworld and hostelbookers.
The idea behind this change is to get hostels to give all of their availability to WRI. The bias towards larger hostels may or may not be intentional in this specific case, but it will certainly be felt, regardless of whether it was intended or not.
In any case, the only way this will change back is if it starts to cause WRI to lose money.
10 years
HostelWorld did run a test for a month in conjunction with a user of our software and then evaluated all our users globally before they changed to this policy. HostelWorld concluded that hostels following this policy gain higher ratings. So now all hostels in the world have a better chance to capture the bookings most suited to their availability as they are not going to competitor hostels that will cause these guests to change rooms. Hostels that give priority to looking after guests (usually smaller hostels) now gain an advantage over larger hostels that give priority to profit at any cost. https://plus.google.com/115758127478089012332/posts/YZt72C6YYgJ
9 years
It's absurd to suggest that moving from one room to another is the only option when trying to make a booking. In some cases, a person or group might see that two of the three nights they want are available and because they really want to stay at that hostel they'll simply alter their stay to two nights. Changing rooms is not an issue when you book fewer nights. But to suggest that there is NO AVAILABILITY WHATSOEVER is not only hurtful to the business, quite frankly it's inaccurate and flawed. Period.
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