The Vision Behind Hosteling.US
When it comes to booking a hostel, there are plenty of options for choosing a platform. With third-party platforms like Expedia, Hostelworld, Booking.com, and Airbnb, there seems to be an overwhelming amount of options for travelers to find a hostel.
But more doesn’t always mean better, and while the abundance of booking platforms gives travelers more options, it can be difficult for a backpacker to choose the right hostel for their travel goals. With this in mind, Hosteling.US co-founder Thea Delamater and her business partner, Sidney Ilg, saw an opportunity to build a booking platform that caters specifically to hostels in the United States.
“Going into launching Hosteling.US, the goal was to drive bookings for the hostels that are not getting bookings on the big platforms, the ones that are in more rural areas that might not get the same shine as a hostel in a bigger market,” said Delamater. “The goal for Hosteling.US is to bring awareness to all American hostels.”
Before launching Hosteling.US as a booking platform, Delamater and Ilg had built The Hostel Collective, a website that was designed to connect hostel owners and help educate them on aspects of the business. Between that and their collective experience in the hostel industry, the two entrepreneurs saw that there was still a lot of room for the industry to grow, both from the guest side of things as well as from the owners’.
“The Hostel Collective was our way of gathering our peers so that we could learn from each other and gather solidarity to help grow the US market,” said Delamater. That included hosting conferences that revolved around sharing industry information to help hostel owners in the US grow their business. While building out the Hostel Collective, Delamater and her business partner were starting to realize how there was still a missing link in the equation.
“We kept hearing from our collective members that no one knows what a hostel is,” said Delamater. “So, we asked ourselves, ‘How do we drive the education behind that?’”
What Makes Hosteling.US Different From Other OTAs
In addition to acting as a booking platform for backpackers, a large component of Hosteling.US involves being a platform to educate people on hostels. In explaining how Hosteling.US makes that possible, Delamater pointed out one of the site’s best features: a quiz that helps curate a traveler’s booking experience by filtering their travel needs and desires through a series of questions during the booking process.
“Our travel quizzes have been one of our most effective marketing tools. Folks are landing on the page, and they’re curious, ‘how do I fit into Hosteling.US?’” said Delamater. “You get a lot of opportunities to figure out how you fit into different categories, and I think folks are landing on our page and learning about hostels for the first time. It’s been one of the more fun ways we’ve been engaging with our users.”
Being on the ground floor, working in hostels for years, and seeing firsthand how the hostel experience can vary so much from hostel to hostel, Delamater explained how Hosteling.US is focused on tailoring its platform specifically to the traveler by giving them a curated booking experience. To do that, the website sorts American hostels based on their vibes, with categories like ‘boutique’, ‘beach’, ‘budget’, ‘city’, ‘party’, and ‘adventure’ being the main categories to help travelers pick the right experience.
Getting their vision to reach this point has been possible for Delamater in part because of the relationship she and Ilg had established with Darren Overby, who has decades of experience in the American hostel industry as a consultant and former hostel owner. Having originally launched Hostels.com and later Hostelmangement.com, as well as being the founder of the San Francisco Pacific Tradewinds, Overby’s wealth of industry information and technical knowledge became a huge asset for Delamater and Ilg.
“With Darren’s help, the ramping up for Hosteling.US was a lot easier than it would have been had we started from scratch,” said Delamater. “To get hostels to join us, we had to create a product that was a little more moldable for each of those places, because each hostel is so different.”
Still, despite having someone like Overby at their side, the two co-founders found that there were other obstacles that they didn’t expect to have to overcome. While the goal behind Hosteling.US is to help drive bookings for hostels, Delamater said they found that some hostel owners were fatigued by the idea of having yet another booking platform to buy into. Having more platforms means more to keep track of, and hostel owners already have a lot on their plates to begin with, making it a tougher sell than expected for the two co-founders.
How Hosteling.US Fits Into the Future of Hosteling
Despite the challenges of growing the platform organically, Delamater said that she sees a bright future for not only the capabilities of Hosteling.US, but also for the industry in general.
“American hostels have kind of debunked the myth that hostels are only chaos and party, partly because we have hostels around the country that are design-forward,” said Delamater. “That debunking has opened the door to older generations to enjoy hostels. And what I’ve seen as a manager is that sometimes that person in their 40s or 50s becomes the star of the show (at a hostel), and it can make the younger travelers start to envision what life can look like as an older traveler. The conversation then is really vibrant, really inspiring.”
From her years of experience in the industry, Delamater touched on certain trends in the way people travel and how that continues to evolve with the times. As travelers’ lifestyles and expectations change, Delamater acknowledged that while there is more connection than ever to our devices, the demand for hostels could continue to rise accordingly, especially amongst the younger generations.
“My hope is that what you’re going to start to see is that the younger generation will start closing their laptops and turning off their phones and becoming more engaged in real life. I think that’s where hostels can shine, because they’re that place where you can actually meet and engage with people who are like-minded, face to face,” said Delamater. “I think that’s what hostels are set to thrive in.”
As for the future outlook for Hosteling.US, Delamater added that her goal is to make the platform the premier place for travelers to go to plan their next hosteling road trip. With popular travel circuits abound in the United States, the vision is to have Hosteling.US be the engine that allows travelers to expand their booking possibilities by connecting them with hostels that suit their travel desires, and that means incorporating even some of the lesser-known hostels in rural or remote areas.
“We want to highlight the best hostels, the ones that are putting in the work and leaving their guests with the best possible experiences. Those are the hostels we want to promote on Hosteling.US,” said Delamater.
