You're Invited!
Preparations are now in full swing for the 6th European Hostel Meeting, March 24th & 25th.
We are pleased to announce this year’s meeting will take place in the gorgeous Interlaken, Switzerland,
home to the Jungfrau - the highest peak in Europe and the greatest place for a ski break!
You may notice this year’s meeting will take place over two days. We will of course be continueing with
the workshop discussions and bar room chats from previous years, but are also giving you a chance to
showcase yourselves & take the opportunity to build partnerships and forge relationships across the
budget travel industry through the European Hostel Meeting Tradeshow on the 25th.
More information is coming soon - keep an eye on this space! If you have any questions or comments,
please contact Danielle Brumfitt, Conference Coordinator, directly at danielle@gomio.com
Krakow 2006
So we’re all home again from Krakow, tired but happy after another interesting Hostel Meeting. For those that have been in Krakow, thanks for coming and taking part in the workshop discussions and the bar-room chats that went on throughout the weekend. Below you can find a review of what went on, some
photos that are hopefully not too incriminating, as well as information on what will be happening next year. For those that were unable to make it to Krakow, we hope that you find some of the information we have collected interesting.
Of course, these are just our impressions of the weekend, and we would love to hear any feedback from those who were with us in Poland, positive or negative, so that we can take all ideas forward for planning next years meeting.
Thanks!
One of the most important parts of this review is to say thank you to all those people who helped make the meeting a success. Thanks go to Nathan and Magda from the
Nathan’s Villa Hostel, for hosting the welcome drinks alongside
Packed Magazine, as well as providing contacts and translation services for the party at the Midgard Club.
The guys from the Dizzy Daisy were also a great help, in particular Piotr, who helped organise the venue for the meeting itself, the venue for the football, as well as being a wonderful and patient guide for the staff from the EHC Office who were in Krakow in the week running up to the meeting itself. By far the best taxi driver in the city!
Also, we’d like to Conrad and the See Krakow tour company for putting on the tour to Auschwitz, all the folks at the Manggha and the Midgard Club, and all the various hostels in Krakow who looked after all of us during our time in their wonderful city.
A great big thank you should also go to all of those who hosted workshops during the meeting;
Catherin Quirin and David Buehler (Swiss Backpacker Network),
Menno Houstra (ECEAT),
Gerald Reisecker and David Long (Packed Magazine),
Eric Van Dijk (Generator Hostels),
Romain Viennois (St Christophers Inns),
Nathan Gendreau (Nathan’s Villa),
Carles Gras (Equity Point),
and Anne Dolan (Ashlee House).
A special thank you also goes to Susan Riedel, who worked on the meeting organisation for the last few months and on the day itself. Her work was invaluable, and helped make the weekend go so smoothly.
Finally, we’d like to thank all the people who took the time to come to Krakow and take part in the meeting. As with last year, we were extremely happy with the response and the number of people who attended and helped create such an interesting, relaxed, and fun atmosphere.
The Review:
Friday Night at Nathan’s
The Welcome drinks were hosted at the Old St Nick’s Bar in the
Nathan’s Villa Hostel,
and were kindly sponsored by Nathan and the guys from
Packed Magazine,
who launched their first edition with us in Krakow.
And ‘Packed’ is a good way to describe the evening,
as everyone showed up to have a few beers, see some old friends,
meet new ones, and enjoy the surroundings.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves immensely, until we realised how late it was, and how early we would have to get up in the morning. Once again,
thanks to Nathan and the guys from Packed for putting on the event, and everyone who showed up and made it so much fun!
Nathan’s Villa: www.nathansvilla.com
Packed Magazine: http://packedmag.com
The Meeting
Location
The 5th European Hostel Meeting took place at the Manggha Centre, the Museum for Japanese Art and Technology, on the banks of the Vistula River. Thankfully the sun came out enough times during the day to enjoy the terrace and the great views over to the Wawel Castle.
The Manggha: www.manggha.krakow.pl.
Opening Presentation
Katrin Schoenig, the General Manager of the European Hostel Cooperation welcomed everyone to Krakow, before handing the microphone to the first speaker of the day. Oriol Badia, from the
Equity Point Hostels in Barcelona and Madrid is also a member of the Board of Directors of the EHC.
Oriol presented the work of the last year by the European Hostel Cooperation and GOMIO.COM,
as well as giving some numbers and figures for the delegates in order that they could see how the company was developing, such as visitors to the website, numbers of bednights sold, and numbers of bookings.
He went on to explain about the work the office had done in terms of affiliates for the GOMIO.COM
website, the European Tour 2005, including some very amusing photos!
If you would like to see Oriol’s powerpoint presentation,
please send us an email at info@gomio.com.
Workshop I – Quality in Low Budget Tourism
This workshop was led by Catherin Quirin and David Buehler from the
Swiss Backpackers Network and
the Backpackers Villa Sonnenhof,
and they discussed the issue of quality in hostelling and low budget tourism.
They talked about their own experiences within the hostel,
the Swiss Backpackers organisation, as well as the general question of ‘what constitutes quality?’
They began with an example of how to evaluate quality service in hostels,
before discussing the ‘Q’ quality label in general. This was a very interesting workshop in that
it gave participants food for thought, as well as practical examples of the
experiences made in Switzerland.
One added highlight of the seminar was the chocolate fondue, an indication of Swiss quality perhaps,
that also made a tasty appearance at the flyer exchange later in the day.
You can download Catherin and David’s powerpoint presentation as a pdf
here.
Workshop II – Ecological Tourism and Hostels
The speaker at Workshop II was Menno Houstra, from the European Centre for Ecological and Agricultural Tourism (ECEAT), and he led a workshop on ecological tourism and what hostels can do to implement ecologically and environmentally sound policies within their establishments. He also explained what ECEAT is, and what the centre is trying to achieve
Menno had many interesting tips and pieces of advice for hostel owners and managers, which are included in the presentation which can be downloaded below. These included things such as saving corporate resources, environmental policy, social policy, and sustainable development.
Menno’s presentation includes lots of practical ideas for hostels, and can be downloaded
here
Workshop III – Hostel Expansion
This workshop lead by Romain Viennois from the
St. Christopher’s Hostel Group London
and Eric van Dijk from the
Generator Hostel Group
dealt with problems and options that an expansion out of the home market brings. The main questions that came up about financing concepts which were thoroughly answered by John Byrne as well from the
St. Christopher’s Hostel Group who joined the two main speakers on stage.
Basically the discussion involved the debate between maintaining an existing concept or coming up with something new in every new location you go to. That means that hostels can create a brand, so that the customers know what exactly to expect going to another hostel of the same chain no matter in which country that will be. On the other hand it might mean a loss of the opportunity to show the country’s or city’s uniqueness which always could be attractive to customers.
Workshop IV – Media and Communication Strategies for Hostels
Dave Long (Editor-In-Chief) and Gerald Reisecker (Publisher) of
Packed Magazine led a very interesting workshop on media and communication
strategies for hostels. Both have academic backgrounds in advertising and communication, as well
as running a backpacking magazine and being travellers themselves.
They gave a number of hints for hostels as to how they can market their establishment,
what things need to be considered before a strategy is formulated, and how they can go about
this once the strategy is in place.
After the presentation they led a discussion amongst the delegates about how different
hostels approach the issue of marketing, as well as inviting questions which the
group as a whole could answer. There were some very interesting ideas and debates within
the workshop, as people shared their experiences and methods of communicating
their hostel and ideas to their guests.
You can download the power point presentation here.
Workshop V – Coping with Sudden Catastrophes
Anne Dolan from the Ashlee House in London, and
Carles Gras from the Equity Point Hostels in
Barcelona and Madrid presented the final workshop of the day,
telling of their own experiences in their hostels following the bombings of London and Madrid.
The idea behind the workshop was to discuss what can be done, for staff and guests when a
catastrophe such as this occurs, as well as to give hints as to how a hostel can be
prepared for the worst.
Anne described the immediate aftermath of the bombings in London, how it
affected the business, and what they did to help the people staying in the hostel at the time.
Carles told the story of what happened in Madrid, the short to long term affects on the hostel,
and what measures have been since implemented in the hostel to make sure that if something
similar ever happened again, they would be more prepared next time.
You can download the powerpoint presentation from Anne here.
You can download the text of Carles’s speech here
Open Forum
The Open Forum was hosted by the Acting General Manager of the EHC, Danielle Brumfitt who will be taking over from Katrin Schoenig whilst she is on maternity leave. The principle topic of the open forum was that of pricing, although the floor was open for questions and discussions on any topic.
Nathan Gendreau from Nathan’s Villa,
and Fanny from the A&O Hostels explained their very different approaches to pricing as a way of starting the discussion, before the delegates took the microphone to give their experiences, before the conversation moved on to include discussions such as the role of the European Hostel Cooperation and the distinction between the EHC and
GOMIO.COM. An interesting couple of hours.
Partying Hard at the Midgard
The Midgard Club, opposite the Opera House in Krakow’s old town is one of the city’s newest clubs, and was a great location for unwinding following a long day of workshops, presentations, exchanging flyers and networking.
There were was much drinking, dancing and chatting to be done, as we all reflected on a long day and a lot of information. We would like to thank once again the owners and the bartenders at the Midgard Club for creating a great atmosphere for us to party and have fun.
Check out the photos!
The Midgard Club: www.klubmidgard.pl.
Breakfast at the Anytime Hostel
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we needed to find a new location for the Sunday breakfast,
and we can’t thank the Anytime Hostel
enough for stepping in at the last minute!
Natascha and her team were up early to make sure there was enough coffee and tea for everyone,
and it was a great way to recover from the party, sitting out front of the hostel in Kazimierz,
watching the hustle and bustle of the Sunday market across the road.
Anytime Hostel: http://www.anytime.com.pl
Poland Versus Europe on the Football Field
In the shadow of the tower blocks of Nova Huta, and under the influence of the night before, the footballers of Krakow and beyond gathered at the sports centre of Krakow Polytechnic to take part in the first European Hostel Football Championship. This pitted the best that Krakow had to offer against a crack Best-of-Europe outfit that featured representatives from Italy, Greece, Germany, Holland, England and one Polish ringer in goal.
Despite that fact that many on the pitch were not in optimum condition following the party on Saturday night, the four games were fast-paced, skilful and entertaining – with plenty of goals and incident – and in true cooperative fashion the honours were shared, with Krakow and Europe each winning two games apiece. There was a quick debate over whether penalties were in necessary, but the English and Dutch representatives were extremely doubtful, and in the end it was decided that a draw was a fair reflection of the talents of the two teams on show.
Well played everyone!
Tour to Auschwitz
Also on Sunday, we organised a tour to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, with the help of the guys from See Krakow Tours. The museum at Auschwitz I tells of story of the crimes committed here by the Nazis in graphic detail, whilst Auschwitz II (Birkenau) is haunting in its scale, being as it was the largest part of the biggest concentration-extermination camp the Nazis built. Since 1947 the grounds of Auschwitz I and II have been open as a memorial to the murder of millions of people.
The museum and memorial website can be found here: www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl
Thanks to Karolina for taking us to the camp, and the guides at Auschwitz for an interesting and informative tour.
List of Delegates
Download: participants.pdf