8th European Hostel Meeting in Dresden
March 27th – March 29th 2009
Dresden a city full of history, beautiful architecture and many nice locations. The
city of the famous ‘Semper Opera House’, the ‘Blue Wonder’, the recently
restored ‘Church of Our Lady’, the ‘Procession of Princes’ and of
course the 8th European Hostel Meeting!
The GOMIO.COM crew organised this year’s Hostel Meeting in cooperation with the
Dresden Hostels. Dresden proved to be a beautiful setting for a successful
meeting!
Of course none of this would have been possible without the great support of many
people and therefore we now want to take the chance to say ‘Thank you’ to all!
First of all we thank the Dresden Hostels and especially Michael Lottes (known as
Lolli) for all their work in Dresden organizing all the great locations for the
meeting and assuring a smooth running in and around Dresden.
Thanks to the Dresden Stadtmarketing for supplying the free Dresden-Regio-Cards for
all participants! We hope you got a lot of use out of it!
A huge ‘Thanks’ goes to all of our speakers! Thank you for sharing your knowledge
with us and for all the interesting workshops which made this a productive and
highly educating conference.
Danielle Brumfitt, our Master of Ceremonies, guided us through the day and brought the
spirit of the Meeting to the crowd. Thank you Danielle!
A great ‘Thank you’ also to our friends from Bionade, Pilsner Urquell and
Fritz-Kola who supplied us with free drinks throughout the whole meeting and
ensured that everyone was happy and definitely not dying of thirst!
Further we want to thank the Global Gossip Group for providing the nice name tags which
made networking and communicating so much easier!
We were very happy that besides the regulars we were able to welcome many new
partners during this year’s conference. We hope you all had a great time at
your first Hostel Meeting.
A special ‘Thanks’ goes to all the participants from overseas. Thank you all for taking
the long trip and making it possible to join us in Dresden!
And of course we would like to thank
everyone who showed up in Dresden and joined us at the 8th European
Hostel Meeting!
We are looking forward to meeting you all again in Catania!
Welcome Drinks, March 27 th
@ Hostel Mondpalast (Louisenstraße 77)
At around 20.00 people started pouring into the bar of Hostel Mondpalast. The bar
was a comfy and stylish location for the Welcome Drinks which thanks to Thomas
Scheibner, the owner was completely ours for the night and was soon entirely
packed.
With free Pilsner Urquell beer and Bionade people got talking quickly and everyone
was happy to meet. Old friends were reunited and sharing memories and news and
of course everyone was making new acquaintances. First ideas and addresses were
exchanged while everyone had a blast and time flew by.
The Meeting, March 28 th
@ Kulturrathaus (Königstraße 15)
At 8.30 people slowly started to arrive at the Kulturrathaus on
Saturday morning while others took their time enjoying their beds a little
longer. But supplied with coffee and snacks everyone was soon ready to follow
the workshops.
The Kulturrathaus proved to be a great location for the meeting
and was equipped with all the amenities needed for a professional conference.
OPENING PRESENTATIONS (9.30 - 10.30)
Michael Lottes of Lollis Homestay
welcomed all participants coming from
26 countries and 130 companies in the name of the
Dresden Hostels and wished everybody a productive weekend.
Further Peter Weißbach, Managing Director
of the European Hostel Cooperation and Thomas Deppe, Chairman of the Backpacker
Network Germany were happy to welcome everyone to the 8th European
Hostel Meeting.
Before the first round of workshops started Matthias Gilbrich of
the Dresden Tourist Board presented Dresden and its beautiful surroundings to
the crowd by showing the Dresden Image film and further giving information on
Dresden’s situation in the tourist sector.
At 10.30 the conference officially
started with the first workshops and everyone headed for the one he was most
interested in. As many of you were sad that they weren’t able to attend all, we
prepared a summary of each workshop. Please take a look at all the information
below where you can also download the presentations and will find the contact
details of each speaker.
WORKSHOPS I (10.30-11.30)
Successful positioning in saturated and stagnating markets
Ernst Brümmer of the TREUGAST International
Institute of Applied Hospitality Sciences brought along his Colleague Stefan
Nungesser and they both gave us a lively insight in how to market your hostel
in challenging times. Find your USPs, found cooperations, brand your hostel.
Try to be unique and give yourself the special touch. Start with an evaluation
and make it better. Yield management is a good tool for hostels to sell their
beds according to the movement on the market. And never forget that smelly
hallways stay in the mind of travellers far longer than any positive detail!
Thank you Mr. Brümmer and Mr. Nungesser!
Contact Mr. Nungesser at stefan.nungesser@TREUGAST.com
Save costs and the environment in a few easy steps
The workshop of Jason Borthwick, owner of
Deepdale Backpackers, dealt with the new trends of the so called ‘green
economy’.
Hostels have the possibility to increase
their own value following the new techniques of construction, like the
isolation of the house, using recycling paper and green products, installing
solar panels and replacing old light bulbs with the new generation of bulbs
that permit saving a huge amount of energy.
Using these new techniques hostels can not only save energy, but further respect and
protect the environment, and also create value for the customers that meets the
current constantly growing sensibility for the environment’s protection.
In other words save money, protect the environment and increase the customer
satisfaction.
Thank you Jason for your inputs!
Contact Jason at jason@deepdalefarm.co.uk
Strategies of running a hostel in unknown places
Cathrin Eßbach of the Penthouse
Backpackers in Osnabrück talked about how to create and develop hostels in
unknown places. She especially described the most important strategies and the
importance of being confident of your own idea. Cathrin encouraged the
participants of this Best Practice round to speak about advantages and
disadvantages of hostels in unknown places. They spoke of possibilities on how
to promote their hostel such as networks with other hostels and trying to
promote the whole destination not just the hostel to even get support by the
local tourism board.
Travelling should be the destination not the location and that’s what should be
the aim of hostels off the beaten track.
Thank you Cathrin for your great workshop!
Contact Cathrin at info@penthousebp.com
WORKSHOPS II (12.00-13.00)
New Trends in SEO and the Influence of Social Media
Nowadays electronic commerce is probably the most important way to sell. Josh Cohen of
HostelManagement.com talked to us about one of the most important things in
order to receive bookings online: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He
shared the best tips to improve the traffic online and further explained how to
increase the number of unique visitors on your websites.
Thank you Josh for such a useful workshop
and for taking the long trip to be with us!
Contact Josh at josh@hostelmanagement.com
Why are price levels in comparable cities so different?
Jason Chin from The Mosaic House Prague, Jörg Schöpfel from East Seven Hostel Berlin and Pawel Momot from
Momotown Hostel Cracow made a market
analysis in regard to the three cities their hostels are located in: Berlin,
Prague and Krakow. All three cities are top tourist destinations. What can you
do to stay in a harsher market: try to convince your guests to stay longer,
offer daytrips in the region!
The Mosaic will upgrade their standard to cater to the new market: a mix of dorms
and hotel style rooms. In Berlin the situation is as follows: with over 13 000
hostel beds the variety of hostels is increasing. Hostels try to find niches by
creating themes (special interest groups). As the prices for real estate are
still low in comparison to other European top destinations the price level of
hostel beds is quite stable. How can you face the developments on the market?
Seasonal prices, special offers, changing dorms into privates over winter.
The situation in Krakow is slightly different as it’s not considered a ‘must see’ destination. It’s a
young market that grew very fast in the last 5 years. In Krakow it’s common to
have an ‘all inclusive’ policy. As the supply seems to be bigger than the
demand Krakow might have to face new challenges as a tourist destination.
Thank you, Jason, Jörg and Pawel!
Contact Jason at jason@bohemianhostels.com
Contact Jörg at j.schoepfel@eastseven.de
Contact Pawel at pawel@momotownhostel.com
Beating the economic crisis – Increasing revenue and cutting costs without cutting quality
Robert Coghlan from Hostels of Sicily was
looking for solutions on increasing the revenue and cutting costs. Questions
like ‘What extra service do you offer?’ ‘How big is the part of your income
which is not generated by selling beds?’ ‘What are your experiences, what
should be included in the price, what should be extra?’ ‘What can you do to cut
your costs?’ were discussed. All participants in this Best Practice round were
looking for solutions but also decided that it is difficult as there are
different types of Hostels.
Thank you Robert!
Contact Robert at info@hostelsofsicily.com
Comparable figures for hostels (Fireside Chat)
Gottfried Obermair from
Yoho-International Youth Hostel Salzburg shared his knowledge and thoughts on
benchmarks and figures during this Fireside Chat. He especially highlighted the
importance of creating benchmarks in cooperation with the hostels that can
result in good ratings through corresponding figures. Gottfried also accentuated
the difficulty of such a study because hostels are often unwilling to give out
their figures. Whoever is willing to participate in the free study should send
an email to Gottfried and will receive a survey. He concluded without
benchmarks there are no relevant figures, without figures no ratings, without
ratings no (cheap) money and of course without money no hostel can survive.
Thank you Gottfried!
Contact Gottfried at yoho@yoho.at
LUNCH BREAK
After the first two rounds of workshops
everybody enjoyed getting back together while having some lunch and getting new
energy for another interesting workshop.
PLENUM (14.15-15.30)
STAY WYSE
Eric van Dijk of Generator Hostels presented
the STAY WYSE research and its present Benchmark study on the Youth Travel
Accommodation Industry. The Association’s mission is to provide safe,
affordable and clean accommodation within a communal atmosphere that encourages
youth travel and cultural understanding and exchange.
We learned that the study will make it
possible for hostels to develop strategic concepts optimising business
outcomes, gain comparisons to the hotel industry, collect data for identifying
trends and it provides guidance concerning subjects like cost effectiveness. So
becoming a STAY WYSE member can be very beneficial.
Thank you Eric!
Download Presentation Benchmark Study
Download Presentation Membership Benefits
Contact Eric at eric@generatorhostels.com
Hostels in 10 years
Romain Viennois of St. Christophers Hostels,
Oliver Winter from A&O Hostels,
Jim Zielinski of The Bulldog Hotel
and Peter Ovenden from the Global Gossip Group, Australia shared their very own
views on the hostel business in 10 years.
Romain Viennois mainly highlighted the importance of investments in complementary offers and in the quality of hostel facilities. Further he said that three different types of hostels will be developing in the future: The Party Village offering different types of accommodation which’s USP is the relaxed atmosphere. In the Bed Factory the price is the most important factor and in the Apartment Hostel the social atmosphere and low staff costs are key factors.
Oliver Winter focused on the real estate market and its influence on the price level of hostels. He said that in the future rental prices will drop, so that new hostels already have an advantage because they save money on their property purchase and rental. They will therefore be able to offer more space because it is cheaper.
Jim Zielinski concentrated his
thoughts on the customer, the staff and Hospitality. ‘Try to understand the
importance of hospitality! Because it does not cost you a penny and it makes
your work more fun…That means strong leadership but also asking the right
questions - not only to your guests but also to your staff who are the
strongest capital in your company.’
The look onto the technological future
was presented by Peter Ovenden. Peter mentioned that Blogging, Twitter and
Facebook are getting more and more important. Nevertheless you should not
forget your core business. ‘Know your customer and what they are willing to pay
for it!’ He said that technology, travel patterns and methods and the demands
of customer will change… and we will be getting older as well, but our
customers age will stay the same.
Thank you Romain, Oliver, Jim and
Peter for reading the tea leaves for us!
Contact Peter at povenden@globalgossip.net
Download Romain’s Presentation
Contact Romain at romain.viennois@st-christophers.co.uk
Download Oliver’s Presentation
Contact Oliver at oliver.winter@aohostels.com
Contact Jim at jim@bulldoghotel.com
WORKSHOPS III (15.30-16.30)
The hostel market in Australia and South America
Peter Ovenden from the Global Gossip
Group and Juan de Dios Ortuzar of Hostal Caracol were able to explain the
differences between two similar and yet different markets such as Australia and
Chile. Both of them are located in the southern hemisphere, have similar
weather and the high season is mostly the same.
On the other side the infrastructure and
tourism of these countries are quite different.
Peter and Juan made us note that building associations can be a useful tool for
developing the tourism and especially the hostel industry. They also explained
the most important differences between their countries and Europe.
Thank you Peter and Juan and we hope to see you in Catania next year!!!
Contact Peter at povenden@globalgossip.net
Contact Juan at hostalcaracol@gmail.com
Create an ambiance – differentiate your Hostel
The workshop presented by Erik Carapetian
& Gevorg Babayan from Envoy Hostel in Armenia explained how important the
hostel’s ambiance is in creating value for the customer.
Erik
focussed his analysis on the importance of getting the customers loyalty
through offering them special services during the holiday experience.
Very
impressive examples are offers like getting to know a real Armenian’s family
life style, tasting a typical Armenian breakfast and also making the customer
feel special by always welcoming him with a smile and his name. Envoy Hostel
knows of the importance of the word of mouth and therefore ensures customer
satisfaction providing special services and cares during the entire holiday
experience.
Following the same issue Robert Coghlan of Hostel of Sicily told us how the customers of
the “Ostello del Plebiscito” in Catania get exceptional attention as well, in
order to make them feel special. Italian lessons, special customized tours or
cooking lessons are just some examples of how a hostel can create more appeal
for the customer.
Both cases show that the costs providing these extraordinary services can differentiate
your hostel and make the customers spread the word about the hostel’s ambience
and quality. So in the long run the hostels will not only cover these costs but
get profit out of it!
Thank you Erik, Gevorg and Robert for all these great ideas!
Contact Erik at erik@envoyhostel.com
Download Robert’s Presentation
Contact Robert at info@hostelsofsicily.com
Bed Bugs in Hostels and the right counteraction
Dr. I. Körber, a free lance biologist and parasitologist, gave us a lot of
interesting facts on the lives and times of bed bugs. How long does it take
till they start suckling? Which temperatures do they prefer? How do we get rid
of them? We learned that 22-24 degrees is their favorite
temperature, black spots in the corners of wooden beds are a secure sign of
their existence. Train your staff to look for signs! An egg needs 7-10 days to
develop, larvae around 40 days until they become adults and lay eggs. A bed bug
can live up to 18 months! Two treatments are necessary! Don’t forget to repeat
a control after 7-10 days, as the next generation might be on the way!
Thank you Dr. Körber!
Contact Dr. Körber at i.koerber@t-online.de
CLOSING PRESENTATIONS (17.00-18.00)
Orphanage in Cambodia
Alan Fryer of Al’s Place Hostel presented
us an issue he is greatly devoted to. As he just came back from one of his
trips to the orphanage in Cambodia where he also teaches English he gave us a
first hand report on the situation and the kids. His main message was ‘We don’t
want your money, we just want your love’.
As a volunteer you can just walk through the orphanage and give the children
attention, caring and love. Things every child should have and which are so
desperately needed by the orphans. Just a few loving words of appreciation can
make a difference in the kids’ lives.
In the end Alan asked everyone to take some posters to hang up in their hostels
getting their costumers awareness and maybe some of them will be able to make a
difference!
Thank you Alan for your commitment!
Contact Alan at kickinhorse@yahoo.com
Moving Slowly
Travelling… Having fun… But we should not forget how difficult the human life conditions
actually can be in a lot of parts of our beautiful world!
With a mix of adventure, real travel spirit, fun and love for other cultures Fabio
Belli and Massimo Solofria of Home Hostels Valencia shared their fantastic
travel across South America and the essentials of this extraordinary continent
with us through their movie. The two were able to take the money raised during
the GOMIO.COM campaign of 2007 and use it directly to help. Once again a great
‘Thank you’ to all the donators. Further the aim was to experience the world
and its myriad of cultures from a different perspective.
Fabio and Massimo explored other ways of meeting people escaping from the traditional
ways proposed by the standardized and anonymous conventional tourism.
Eliminating the social barriers between cultures, showing a closer relationship
between local inhabitants and tourists can be the best way of making tourism a
fundamental factor for the integration and the understanding among the
different countries and cultures.
Their car, Citroen Megari, chosen to get through South America, is one of the
protagonists of this travel as well. Besides giving the feeling of the real
adventure travel, the car ensured the possibility to have more stops, to get in
touch directly with the people, and therefore it perfectly represented the
spirit of the journey.
Being aware of the human life conditions,
especially of a lot of children, trying to understand and accepting the
different cultures were the successful goals of this amazing travel!
Thank you Massimo and Fabio for taking us
on this fantastic trip!
Contact Massimo at massimo@movingslowly.com
Take a look at all the Meeting photos here
European Hostel Meeting Party, March 28 th
@ Club Metronom (Louisenstraße 55)
At 21.00 people started arriving at the Metronom Bar and
Club for the famous Hostel Meeting Party. With free Bionade and Rhöner beer
everyone looked back at a productive day.
While some enjoyed a game of pool or challenged each other
to a match of tabletop soccer others had a blast showing off their newest dance
moves in the Metronom Club in the basement. The guy that got everyone in the
mood for dancing was DJ Snikk Flanger (Tel. +49
(0)162-7730126) who would be more than happy to spin the discs at all of your
future parties all over Europe.
Take a look at all of the Party photos here
TRADE SHOW, March 29 th
@ Goethe-Institut (Königsbrücker Straße 84)
22 tables full of information material and other goodies as well as the new creation of
Flow Products awaited everyone around 10.00 at the Trade Show on Sunday.
Everyone had the perfect chance to get inspired and find partners and new
ideas. Questions were asked and answered and connections were formed and
renewed.
While everyone was busy networking the participants of the Backpacker Network Germany spoiled
us with German specialities like yummy Pretzels, Currywurst, Weißwurst and the famous Black Forest
Cake. Even a real Bavarian Dirndl was there to be admired.
Further participants had the chance to take advantage of a DormProject presentation as
well as one on the GOMIO.COM software. In the end everyone left happy and
probably also a little exhausted with new impressions and knowledge looking
forward to seeing all again in 2010 in Catania.
Take a look at all the Trade Show photos here
We are already looking forward to meeting you at the
9th European Hostel Meeting in Catania
March 21 st - 23 rd, 2010
| EHM Participants |
| Photos |
| CONTACT: info@gomio.com phone: + 49 30 24 62 85 00 |
The 8th EHM is sponsored by
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