When do you need more receptionists?

At what point does the number of guests require an additional receptionist to cover the workload?

When there are a lot of guests the amount of work increases. Where is your tipping point? If you have one receptionist on shift how many guests is reasonable for them to handle alone? 20? 30? 40? 50?

When is a second receptionist reasonably necessary? What about a third or fourth?

I’m not sure if I could handle more than 50 guests on my own in a small hostel where I’m actively involved in everyone’s stay. That's already pushing it. My receptionists would be far more comfortable with less. When I worked reception in a resort we had two receptionists on duty for 700 guests and that was enough because we had separate teams responsible for entertaining everyone.

Obviously all hostels ask different things from their receptionists, and “it depends” on a lot of factors. But in general, what would you consider to be an appropriate cutoff?