European Hostel Cooperation Newsletter – JANUARY 2009

Happy New Year, and welcome to the January 2009 edition of the European Hostel Cooperation Newsletter. As always we have lots of interesting stuff for you, including information about GOMIO.COM, the 8th European Hostel Meeting in Dresden, as well as a round-up of all the hostelling and travel news that caught our eye over the last couple of months. If there is anything you feel we missed, or would like included in a future edition of the EHC newsletter, then please do not hesitate to drop us a line at info@gomio.com.

Rio de Janeiro and Salvador have been selected as the featured “City of the Month” for January and February 2009. We currently have 38 hostels participating in this promotion, and we are offering free advertising spaces for two months of GOMIO.COM for any hostels who install our booking interface (CRP) on their own website. The promotion ends on 28th February, so there is still time if you want to be a part of it. The “City of the Month” feature also includes city information as well as a presentation on the homepage of GOMIO.COM

For March and April 2009 the featured city will be Lisbon. Any Lisbon hostel who takes our booking interface on their website will receive free advertising for two months on the Lisbon city page on GOMIO.COM, as well as google ads featuring both the city name and hostel name…in other words, GOMIO.COM will promote both your hostel and your city if you take part in the promotion.

If you are interested in taking part, or know of any other tourism related businesses in Lisbon who may wish to advertise with us or become an affiliate partner, please feel free to contact us at info@gomio.com

This January we are starting a new marketing campaign for GOMIO.COM through our page on the social networking site Facebook.

The idea is that guests check Facebook for a list of participating hostels, and then make a booking at GOMIO.COM. They shall contact us with their booking reference. If they book at least three nights they get one for free until March 15th.

We will be encouraging the guests to write about their experiences in the hostels, and upload pictures and videos to our Facebook page.

We want to thank all the hostels that offered free nights. Check out our homepage to see how the campaign looks. If you would like to take part or need some more information, please send us an email at info@gomio.com, and let us know how many free nights you would like to offer.

You can find our new Facebook page here:
Facebook page

The 8th European Hostel Meeting which takes place on the 28th and 29th March 2009 is getting closer, and for those of you who want to come and haven’t yet registered, you can find the registration page here: Hostel Meeting Registration

Need more info? Well, the 8th European Hostel Meeting promises to be an extremely interesting and entertaining couple of days. Here are some of the things we have planned for you:

Workshops – Our workshops for 2009 cover the topics of Ecology, Website boosting and Marketing, and we have presentations lined up on the global hostel market, the present and the future of hostelling, and what is happening with GOMIO.COM. There are also a series of “Best Practise” workshops on the themes of small hostels, pest control, pricing, financing, and open source reservation software. For much more detail on the workshops and presentations, please go to the workshops page at: Workshops

As well as the by-now-traditional welcome drinks and Hostel Party, as well as the Sunday Trade Fair, alongside our partners in Dresden and elsewhere we have put together a comprehensive supporting programme that includes:

• walking tours in Dresden
• tours and rock-climbing in picturesque Swiss Saxony
• pub crawl for those travelling through Berlin
• discounts for travellers coming to the meeting via Leipzig, Berlin and Munich

As for accommodation for the meeting in Dresden itself, the Hostels of Dresden have kindly offered a special price for between 26th and 31st March, whereby every bed will cost €16 including bed sheets and breakfast, regardless of which type of room you require. A list of the participating hostels can be found here: participating hostels

More information about workshops and other activities, as well as accommodation and how to register, can be found here: Hostel Meeting Page

We have mentioned these guys before, but there is no harm in doing so again as Hostelmanagement.com is a wonderful online resource for anyone involved in the hostelling industry. As well as the website itself, they send out a newsletter with discussions, news and information that is also well worth a look. The most recent edition included discussions on the hostel forum, information on hostels for sale, video marketing, productivity software and front desk manuals, as well as information on opening a hostel and much more.

To take part in the discussions, browse the various resources online, and sign up for the newsletter, visit: http://www.hostelmanagement.com/

It seems as if the mainstream media is finally catching on to the idea that hostels have been changing over the past decade. The Times featured an article last November about the “Best Boutique Hostels” in Europe, which included mentions for Plus Florence, Greg and Tom 2 in Krakow, the Living Lounge in Lisbon, Equity Point in Marrakech, the Hostel Celica in Ljubljana, Miss Sophie’s in Prague, Langholmen in Stockholm, and the Rooms Deluxe Hostel in Valencia.

You can read the article online on the Times website at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/where_to_stay/article5157071.ece

In a similar vein, the Guardian recently ran a feature in their weekend Travel section on the best five “Ski Hostels”, including the All In One Lodge in St Moritz, the Gite Vagabond in Chamonix, the Treehouse in Kasberg, the SameSun Hostel in Banff, and The Hostel in Jackson Hole.

Once again you can check out the article online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/jan/10/five-best-ski-hostels

And now for something slightly more unusual: a 25-bed hostel located at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport that is located in a disused 747 jumbo jet. The appropriately named “Jumbo Hostel” is apparently the world’s first airplane hostel, although sadly its stationary nature means you’ll need to go to Sweden to check it out, rather than wait for it to come to you.

More information on the Jumbo Hostel can be found here: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/worlds-first-aeroplane-hotel-ready-for-takeoff-at-stockholm-airport-1222848.html

What does the current economic situation mean for the travel and tourism industry, and what other trends can we expect to see in 2009? Travolution.co.uk gathered together a number of different people from the field, including senior executives and travel bloggers to submit their predictions for the coming year. Some of it is interesting, some of it is useful, and the odd thing is slightly worrying, but you can judge for yourself. Check it out at: http://www.travolution.co.uk/articles/2008/12/23/2055/predictions-for-2009.html

Finally, we found an interesting article on HotelMarketing.com that has a number of online marketing tips aimed at hotels for the upcoming economic crisis. Although some of it may not be applicable directly to the hostel business, it contains some ideas that you may find useful as you plan your website and online marketing strategy for the upcoming year. You can read it online at: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/online_hotel_marketing_tips_for_a_recession/

And that’s your lot for the January 2009 edition of the European Hostel Cooperation newsletter, but remember: we love to hear from you, and if you want to get in touch with us at the EHC for any reason at all, here’s how to do it:

European Hostel Cooperation
Schwedter Str. 227
10435 Berlin
Germany

Telephone: +49 30 2462 8500
Fax: +40 30 2462 8501
Email: info@gomio.com.

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