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The European Hostel Cooperation newsletters, which will be sent out once a month,
a part of the EHC’s ideal to provide a communication network between European hostels,
and help share information across the scene. We have brought together both
information that we think is interesting and useful, as well as some things
that other hostel owners have asked us to communicate.
If you have things that you want to get out there, or something that
you think is interesting, send it over to us at info@gomio.com.
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I hope everyone had a great summer, and that the weather was better
than it was here in Dublin. This section is where we explore ‘the scene’,
and let Europe know what is going on across the continent.
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New Hostels in Europe
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There are a number of hostels that have just been launched,
or are being launched in the not too distance future.
Again, if you know of any others that are opening, closing or moving, or
are doing something yourselves, let us know so we can introduce it in the newsletter.
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Munich – The Meininger City Hostels, who have 3 houses in Berlin, launched a
new hostel in Munich on the Landsberger Strasse on the 1st September.
To have a look at the new place, or for some more information, visit
www.meininger-hostels.de.
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Munich – Also branching out into Munich, the Wombat’s from Vienna opens their
new house in Germany ‘in time for Oktoberfest’, according to their website.
For a closer look at the new Wombat’s, take a look at
www.wombats.at.
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Granada – The Oasis Backpackers Hostel in Granada moved to a new location on
Placeta Correo Viejo on the 30th August. If you want more detailed information,
or just fancy a holiday in the sun, go to
www.oasisgranada.com.
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Prague – Sir Toby’s has a friend; Miss Sophie’s is a new arrival in Prague,
from the same team that brought you Sir Toby’s. It is opening this October and
you can find more information at their classy website,
www.miss-sophies.com.
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Calling Small Hostels!!!
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This is a message for all of you that own small hostels and feel
that the size is what makes them special. Michael from the Lollis
Homestay in Dresden has asked us to let people know about a new website and
network in Europe dedicated to small hostels. These hostels believe that they share
the same dedication to backpackers and the same problems as well, so they decided to build this network.
If you run a small hostel (up to 25 beds) or know somebody who does, get in contact with
them so that they can extend their list. The web address to check out for fans of
hostels that are small but perfectly formed is:
www.small-hostel.com.
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Legal Trouble in Germany
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Some fairly serious information that came to the EHC’s attention is that
the DJH (German branch of Hostelling International/YHA) has threatened several
independent hostels with legal action for using the term ‘Jugendherberge’ on their websites.
The hostels have been told to remove the word from their websites or face claims for financial compensation.
The DJH has apparently managed to protect the term which is the most commonly used term in German for a hostel.
At least one of the hostels involved, the Euro Youth Hotel in Munich,
is challenging the organisations right to claim this term as their own.
If anyone wants more information about this, you can contact Andy Mayston
at the Euro Youth Hotel at
andy@euro-youth-hotel.de.
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Party in Amsterdam
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The Bulldog Hostel in Amsterdam completed their renovations, and in
typical style has decided to throw a party on the 1st and 2nd October.
Jim Zielinski wants to cordially invite the hostel world to his doorstep
and he sends this message from the Dam;
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“We would like to share our celebration with new and old friends and intimates from the business,
and some regular guests have given us some suggestions on how to make this successful and fun;
‘Hey Bulldog, why don’t you cover everyone at the party in whipped cream, and then unleash
a pack of seals to lick it off and then perform cute tricks all night long…’
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Well we do not know the exact program yet be we are happy to be your hosts in what will be,
by the end of the evening, a completely unregulated drunken party situation somewhere in the
Red Light District. We strongly advise you to bring some safety glasses and a long white coat…
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Most of our friends will get a personal invitation, but if we forget anyone or you would just
like to join in then send me an email at jim@bulldog.nl, or call on 0031 20 6203822 and let us
know how many people are going to come…Hopefully we will see you soon!!”
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WYSTC 2004 Madrid
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The World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) is taking place on the 12th – 18th September
2004 in Madrid, a chance for different youth and student travel organisations to take
part in events, seminars and trade fairs. In 2003 some 319 companies from
70 countries took part, and some of our members will be there this year.
We will let you know what they thought of the whole thing and anything that they learned next month.
It would be great if those of you who do go to Madrid let us know what you think,
if it was valuable, what you learned, to help people decide whether or not it is something
they may like to take part in the future. The website for those who are interested
can be found at www.wystc.org.
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Hostelling in the Media
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There have been a couple of newspaper articles that came to our attention in
the last month about independent hostels, but again we do not have the means
to search through the entire European media so if something catches your eye
then we will include it in the next newsletter. The language of the article
does not matter, it does not only have to be in English!
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The Sunday Herald in Scotland carried an article on 8th August entitled
‘Too many hostels catering for too few backpackers’. Apart from what is
obvious from the title, the article also contained some interesting
figures about backpackers visiting Scotland, citing a Napier University
report that stated that the average backpacker tends to put more money
into the local economy as an individual, basically because s/he tends to stay longer.
Whilst the average tourist stays for 2 weeks and spends £209, the average backpacker
stays for 3 weeks and spends £638. To view the whole article go to
www.sundayherald.com/43927.
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The Warsaw Business Journal, in their article on the new budget airlines flying to
Poland (‘Leaving on a Jet plane’: 22/08/2004) explored the impact of
budget airlines on tourism, and had contributions from Marta Nakonieczna,
manager of Nathan's Villa Hostel (Warsaw), Ernest Mikolajczuk, owner of
the Oki Doki Hostel (Warsaw), and Zofia Czekalewska (Warsaw), financial manager of Youth Hostel.
To read the whole article go to
www.wbj.pl.
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The Irish Times also featured independent hostels, in a very positive light,
in an article entitled ‘A hostel reception can be welcoming’, published on the
17th August. It gave good publicity to the independent hostel scene in Ireland,
and the independent hostel networks. If you want to read it you can find it online at;
www.ireland.com,
but sadly this is a subscription service only.
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Tourism Figures
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There have not been many tourism figures or statistics published so far for 2004,
but we promise that as soon as the European-wide numbers become available we will
distribute them to you. However, the information we have so far from certain key markets
such as the UK, France and Germany seems to suggest that the market is up between 10 and 20%.
This still needs to be confirmed, but it looks like we are moving back to the high levels
we saw in 2000, before September 11th and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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For those who have an interest in this kind of data, there is a site called
www.tourism.info,
that is designed to give an information and data supply to the tourism industry,
and it has visitor/bed night statistics for a number of European countries.
You need to register but it is free, and then you have access to the information on their database.
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Some statistics for certain countries for 2004 are available at:
UK - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=352
Ireland - http://www.cso.ie/publications/transport/tatq.pdf
Lithuania - http://www.tourism.lt/statist/inbound.htm
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Budget Airlines
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Many of us who operate hostels in cities that have found themselves in the flight-path of the
new no-frills airlines know the impact that they are having on the budget travel market,
in particular with increasing numbers of people taking advantages of the cheap flights
for weekend or other short breaks. For those of you that own hostels in these cities
the new routes below may be important for you, or if you just fancy a break after the
busy summer season then here’s where you can go…
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Easyjet (www.easyjet.com) have launched or
will be launching new routes from Berlin (Schoenefeld) to Ljubljana, Geneva, Madrid,
Krakow, Riga and Tallinn, and Geneva to Budapest, Madrid and Rome, as well as a link
between Paris ORY and Madrid, amongst others.
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Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) have new routes from London
Stansted to Riga, Santander and Zaragoza
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Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com) will begin flights
from Düsseldorf to Warsaw and Rome.
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SkyEurope (www.skyeurope.com) as of the end of
September will launch new routes from Krakow to Amsterdam, London, Milan, Paris and Rome.
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Apart from general tourist statistics, there is a lack of information out there
about backpacking and the youth/budget market. We have found a couple of projects that
have some interesting information about the independent travel scene, which we have
summarised below with links to more extensive detail. Again, if you become aware of
something, in your own country or wherever, that you believe others in the hostel scene
might be interested in, let us know so we can include it in future newsletters.
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ATLAS Backpacker Research Group
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The Association of Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS) has a Backpacker
Research Group that was set up in 2001 to bring together academics from across
the world that are working on these themes. In September of last year they published a
report entitled ‘New Horizons in Independent Youth and Student Travel’, a report based on
over 2300 responses by young travellers across 4 continents, which we have summarised
below, or you can download the entire article for free at
www.atlas-euro.org.
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Summary of ‘New Horizons in Independent Youth and Student Travel’,
(Richards and Wilson, Sep.2003, for ISTC and ATLAS)
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- A fifth of all tourism is by people aged 15 -25 and is forecast to rise to 25% by 2005
- Estimated 140 million young people travel each year
- ‘Despite its growing scope and importance, youth and student travel has not been studied
in great detail in the past, arguably due to a combination of measurement problems and a
misconception that youth and student travel markets are low value’
- The importance of youth travel is in the fact that they have the tendency
to travel wider, stay longer and so have a higher overall spend and a spread of
spending over a number of local destinations.
- Young travellers also tend to be relatively well educated, as 34%
have a degree and further 25% studying for one.
- Over half reject the term ‘backpacker’, preferring to use ‘traveller’ to define what they are.
- Information sources – 71% use the internet to research information before
the trip, and the internet is the most popular research source.
- Average length of trip in Europe is 34 days
- On important fact about young travellers length and stays and
choices made with regards accommodation etc is that: ‘a higher proportion
of their expenditure is likely to be made with local businesses rather than national or global chains.
This may have the effect of increasing their local economic impact in relation to other types of visitors.
In other words, young travellers are actually better for the local economy than other tourist groups,
which destroys the myth of budget travellers being ‘low value’ to their destinations.
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University of Roehampton – global nomad project
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The University of Roehampton in the United Kingdom has developed a
research project on backpacking entitled the ‘Global Nomad’. There are a
number of articles you can read at their homepage; www.roehampton.ac.uk/backpacking.
The research is more concerned with the philosophical and sociological aspects of backpacking,
but some of the articles are interesting and certainly influence the way you look at the guests
when they are standing in front of you at reception! The topics include; the distinction between
tourist and traveller; backpacking after September 11th; the history of backpacking from the hippy
trails of the 1960s to the present day; and the different types of backpacker there are.
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A European Survey?
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One of the things we discovered when looking at the issue of research and studies
into backpacking is that there has been very little done in Europe.
The only regular survey of backpacker attitudes and preferences that we
have seen is carried out by TNT magazine in Australia, in a series called
Backpackers Uncovered. You can see the results at
www.tntmagazine.com/au/industry.
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The results do not offer us much as European hostels, or for the European hostel scene,
but it did get us thinking. Although we have a lot to do at the moment with getting
the EHC off the ground, we would like, for the future, to consider working on a
research project to get some information about backpackers in Europe.
The results, which we could share across the whole scene, would give us all
an idea about how the market looks, as well as the attitudes and preferences of our guests.
Of course, we would need the help of the hostels to get this off the ground, and timing (with
us coming up to the winter season) is also an issue. But if anyone has any ideas or is
interested, send a mail to paul.scraton@gomio.com.
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This is the extremely interesting part of the newsletter where we let you
know about what the EHC has been up to, and what developments have been made or are in the pipeline.
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Review
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The hostel meeting in July in Rome, when we presented the EHC and Gomio.com seems
like such a long time ago, and we feel like we haven’t stopped for breath since then.
Most of our time has been taken up with the launch and developments of the portal, as well
as the technical side of things, but we are beginning to work on the other important part of the
EHC; the network, information sharing and representation side of things, of which this newsletter
is the first step. As always, if anyone has comments, contributions or needs support in any way, do
not hesitate to get in contact with us and we will try to help.
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Following the launch of the portal we have continually worked on developments and improvements,
such as introducing the release period, the ability to book private rooms, and other general
improvements on the management system, trying to respond as quickly and as thoroughly as
possible to any requests, remarks and critical comments that we have received from our members.
We have had many problems over the last few months but we believe we are making some big steps
in the right direction – the sections below highlight the new developments that have been and are being introduced.
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One major problem we had was with our server, and as many of you may have noticed the portal and
the management system was down far too often. We have now moved to another hosting company,
and have begun to get the better results in terms of ‘up time’ we expected.
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We have, in the first three months, had bookings worth nearly €300,000 which were, of course,
totally provision and commission free. This is not where we want to be in the long run but we
feel that this is an encouraging start. We have around 3000 visitors a day on the portal and
this number is continually rising. We have achieved good results in terms of number of bookings
in some areas, such as Spain, Italy and Germany, which is related to the number of members we have
in these places, but there are many of concern, such as the UK and Ireland, and parts of Eastern Europe,
which we need to work on, to build up the number of members and allocations, in order to provide a Europe-wide,
bookable service for the guests.
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Please bear in mind that we are a young company, and it will take some time for us to achieve
the results that we want, and that you want also. We need patience, and the continued support of
Europe’s hostels, if we are to succeed.
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Gomio.com
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If you click on www.gomio.com you will see a very different portal to one that you
have been looking at all through the summer. We have worked on a new design, which
we feel reflects more our aim to become the ‘home of backpacking in Europe’. There are a number of
new features as well that we have introduced, including;
- Improved search results possibilities for guests wanting to book beds
- A Go Europe general travel information section
- News section to be updated weekly with latest backpacking and travel news
- New Europe, country and city maps
- Interactive features such as online journals and forum
- Increased range of country and city information
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If any of you are interested in introducing your city or country where we at present
have no information on the site then contact Paul in the office on
paul.scraton@gomio.com.
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We have also begun to take our first steps into building a strategy for advertising on the site,
a concept that will be useful for advertisers and the guests whilst maintaining the key
EHC principles of impartiality and equal treatment. Hostels can advertise – but it will
be made very clear that advertising has no bearing on listings, rankings or ratings –
as well as other companies and organisations that operate in the backpacking market,
such as walking tours, bus companies and so on. The advertising strategy is of course to
raise funds for the company, but the advertising needs to be of use to the people using the site.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about advertising on Gomio.com, contact us at head office
on 00 353 1 638 7771 or email to info@gomio.com.
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We have also prepared the groundwork changes to the management system which will
be initiated over the next 14 days, and we believe that those of you who have GoMio
allocations and are using the system regularly will be happy with the progress made, such as;
- New, more user friendly overview and layout to allow for fast and easy use of the management system.
- A simplified method of creating/editing room types.
- A new system allowing the user to manipulate allocations and prices, giving the user a better overview and allowing changes allocations/prices of one day at a time to several years at a time without effort.
- New help features, allowing the user to access a help section or directly contact the head office through the management system.
- Improved microsite management.
- More extensive reports.
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Take a look at the site, and for the members the management system, and as always if
you have questions, comments, or criticism that you want to send our way we always appreciate it.
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Credit Card Booking Interfaces
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Alongside the portal we have also developed and introduced credit card booking
interfaces that allow hostels to have confirmed credit card bookings on their
own websites. We call these clever tools CRPs (Customised Reservation Pages).
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Hostels all over Europe have begun to realise that the number of backpackers and
low-budget travellers that persist on a credit card based, immediately confirmed
booking is quickly and constantly rising. This is due in particular to the rising
number of American backpackers. Ever more guests are not willing to wait for an email
confirmation sent out by the hostel, a service nearly all of us offer.
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Very often it is too expensive for the individual hostel to order the necessary software
and secure the vital contracts with credit card companies for checking, securing, and
transmitting the data. There are some options on the market but often they cut into the
revenues of hostels by taking commissions or provisions.
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What we offer from GoMio is the means to have credit card bookings on your own
websites, through these CRPs which we design to fit the style and layout of your
existing page, and are connected to the GoMio.com booking engine. The benefit is
that with no provisions or commissions, the offer is free to the hostels, with the
normal credit-card booking fee charged to the guest (as with normal GoMio bookings)
going to us as a way of re-financing the company
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We do think that getting an individual, cost-free credit card booking interface
integrated into your own webpage is of high value, especially for small hostels,
that otherwise might miss out on guests to whom a confirmed booking is essential.
Please note that you do not need to take credit card payments to make use of this;
the guests can pay you for the bed in whichever way you choose when they get to the hostel.
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If you want to take a look at how they fit into a hostel website, the following links are
to a few of the hostels that have already taken the GoMio CRP;
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Euro Youth Hotel, Munich and Bad Gastein, Germany and Austria –
euro youth hotel CRP
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Kabul Hostel, Barcelona, Spain –
Kabul Homepage (click ‘internet booking’)
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Le Chalit, Cannes, France –
Le Chalit CRP
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Dizzy Daisy Group, Poland –
www.hostel.pl (click ‘book on-line’)
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Us the Locals, Nasaud, Romania –
Us-the-Locals!Home CRP
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Lette’m Sleep, Berlin, Germany –
www.backpackers.de
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If you have any questions, or want more information about having credit card bookings on the
website, give us a call in the office or send us an email and we can send you some further information.
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EHC In-house Reservation Management Software
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In Rome in July we announced that we would be developing in-house reservation management software.
This software is based on that created by ASSD, one of the most popular reservation systems in
the world, with a proven track record for reliability and stability. The EHC has
worked on this system to meet the needs of the EHC members, and it can be adapted
depending on the individual needs of each hostel in terms of what features and functions they require.
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By August the development, including the interface with the GoMio booking engine, was
complete and first installation took place in the week from the 23-27 August at the Alessandro Hostels in Rome.
The demo version of the EHC In-house Reservation Management Software is available, and if you would
like to take a look, or get any other information about it, contact us at head office.
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The price? Of course, these things are not cheap, but we have managed to come to an
arrangement that is heavily subsidised, and will hopefully allow even smaller hostels to
have the system and move away from pen and paper. In the long run this can even save
money in terms of time spent devoted to looking after reservations.
The total costs involved in getting this software from the EHC is as follows;
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In terms of the cost of the licences there are two options;
1) With an allocation on Gomio.com the price will be subsidised to €350 per licence
(one licence is needed per work station).
2) With no allocation commitment the software costs the non-subsidised price of €800
per licence in order to cover the licence costs of the EHC.
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For support and two service updates a year there is a charge of €20 per month for 24 hour
support and software which is paid annually. This charge is per customer and not by the
number of houses/hostels they are operating
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Installation costs: The EHC will install the software and train the employees of
the Hostel on site. The fees for this will include flight expenses for
the technician (the EHC will find the cheapest prices and provide a quote to the hostel),
€100 per day for the technician to help cover salary expenses (the average installation is
3-4 days including training of the employees) and accommodation of the technician for
the duration of the installation. Please contact us for more information, or you can ask
the Alessandro Hostel in Rome for more information.
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Contact the EHC
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We’ve said this throughout the newsletter but we are going to say it one final time.
We want to hear from you about whatever it is you want to talk about.
We cannot survive if we do not provide for hostels what they want, and as
hostel owners we ourselves have a good idea, but we can’t know everything…
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You can get in contact with us at the EHC Head Office whenever you
have a question, a comment or you just feel like a chat…
Telephone: 00 353 1 638 7771
Email: info@gomio.com
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