Spotlight: Europe’s Famous Hostels
For as many hostels as there are around the world, there are only a few organizations that bring hostels together under one umbrella.
Whereas the North American Hostel Association (NAHA) brings hostels across North America together, Europe’s Famous Hostels is an association of independently run hostels across Europe. The organization, which began in 1995, has grown considerably over the last decade and now encompasses more than 80 hostels across Europe. It still embodies the same mission of promoting other hostels in the association and sharing industry information to help strengthen the industry as a whole, though certain things have changed and been tweaked over the years.
Growth of the Association
Vinícius Alkmim, who took over as General Manager of Europe’s Famous Hostels in 2019, spoke about some of the things that make the organization unique, what its members should expect, and how Europe’s Famous Hostels plans to grow even stronger in the coming years. Alkmim stepped into the role as GM with more than a decade of hostel experience, having started at the age of 16 working in hostels as a cleaner and working his way up the ladder in various hospitality operational and leadership roles, and has helped the membership more than double since taking over.
“I knew the association. I had been going to conferences since 2009, so it was natural for me to get on board,” said Alkmim. “But when I started, the association was struggling with an identity crisis. Some members wanted it to be an OTA, others wanted it to be more of a social club.”
The membership fee at the time was also, in Alkmim’s eyes, cost-prohibitive for independent hostels to join Europe’s Famous Hostels. It seemed more sensible to pivot away from the idea of the association to become an OTA and rather focus on building from within.
“We decided to focus on community and training. We worked on getting the word out to our staff and creating knowledge about the association,” said Alkmim. That pivot, plus the timing of COVID-19 rocking the hospitality industry, created a perfect opportunity for the association to step back before taking big strides forward.
“The pandemic gave us a chance to reshuffle,” said Alkmim. “We spent the whole pandemic talking to hostels, helping them with staff, looking for European financing models.”
From that reshuffling came the idea to hold four conferences per year, working more directly with sponsors, and building out pillars for growth. While four conferences a year can be a lot to coordinate, there are different agendas and focuses for the various conferences Europe’s Famous Hostels holds. Each of the different conferences is designed to focus on different levels of hospitality and hostel management.
Not only has Europe’s Famous Hostel been around for longer than an organization like NAHA, but they also charge a higher membership fee, on top of holding multiple conferences per year. Having a whole team—from web developers and photographers to support managers and trainees—and charging a higher fee, Alkmim said, allows the association to do more to benefit its members, but it also applies more pressure on the ones in charge.
“What I learned is that when you do it for free or very cheaply, you might get lots of people, but people might take you for granted. We charge more, and so the people are going to push back. They want to see the value of what they’re paying,” said Alkmim. But the way Alkmim sees it, that pressure is good, forcing him and the executive board to continue to find ways to create value for members of the association.
Having attended the NAHA Conference in April, Alkmim noted some of the differences he took away from the way that the two hostel associations operate, and also how there were distinct differences in the two markets. For instance, the hostel culture.
“Backpacking is not as easy (in America) as it is in Europe, and that poses a challenge. That may create the wrong idea that hostels in America don’t get to be as complex operations as in Europe, but I came back very convinced that this is just a myth,” said Alkmim.
The programming and flow of the NAHA Conference, he added, was also different from the ones held by Europe’s Famous Hostels. “I came away very impressed. I told them (my board) that you better watch out,” he said. “NAHA is really focused.”
But wanting to grow the association isn’t about competition. If anything, the increase in conferences and global connections that are made at those conferences is continuing to strengthen ties between the two continents and create more opportunities for collaboration. Other key differences between NAHA and Europe’s Famous Hostels that Alkmim noted are how Europe’s Famous Hostels has built out three different pillars to help silo their efforts.
The Three Main Pillars
One pillar is promotion. Alkmim expressed how much time and effort Europe’s Famous Hostels puts into content creation, and also creating loyalty programs with transit companies such as Flixbus and Eurorail, catering to the backpacker on a budget by building incentives into staying at hostels in the Europe’s Famous Hostel association. This promotional pillar extends far beyond digital spaces; it drives physical engagement through offline marketing materials like custom maps, t-shirts, tote bags, and posters across 84 locations. Most notably, Europe’s Famous Hostels has just released a landmark visual documentary that chronicles the history of European hostels and shines a light on their 30-year legacy of building European cohesion.
Another pillar is community, which is arguably the core pillar of the association. Beyond hosting four major conferences per year all across Europe, Famous Hostels has created its own internal communication platform. Here, members can interact seamlessly, share specialized knowledge, find solutions to common challenges, and even book stays at other network hostels with a 50% discount.
Most recently, the association launched the ‘Famous Hostels Academy,’ a series of six courses covering diverse topics, from revenue management to customer service. The curriculum, Alkmim said, was designed following an extensive community survey aimed at identifying the industry’s primary knowledge gaps. The course scripts blend the communal knowledge gathered during the conferences with the expertise of top talent sourced directly from the community.
The ultimate goal of the program is to increase staff retention and ease the onboarding process for new hires. This, Alkmim said, is the defining challenge of the modern tourism sector.
“Staff shortage has never been so severe,” said Alkmim. “After the pandemic, many professionals migrated to other industries, leaving a void that is incredibly hard to fill. As much as technology can help bridge that gap, hospitality is an industry blatantly built on human connection, which is something that AI simply cannot emulate. This is the challenge of our times: to make hospitality sexy again.”
The final pillar, said Alkmim, is representation.
“I believe the industry shouldn’t be only represented by OTAs and consultants,” said Alkmim. “It takes a collective effort, from the owners, hostel staff, the OTAs, and consultants. But most importantly, it needs to have the hostels’ and their guests’ interests at the center.”
That collective effort involves gathering and developing as much data as possible from the association’s standpoint to help better serve the hostel community and members of Europe’s Famous Hostels. It also entails working directly with supplies and partners to negotiate and lobby for the best pricing for hostels in the association. The pillar for representation, as Alkmim said, is at the core of EFH’s latest expansion. That, he noted, is how the association has been able to grow from 34 hostels to 86.
“For 30 years, we only had one hostel per city,” said Alkmim. “Now, we have three per city.”
