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Welcome to the September European Hostel Cooperation Newsletter. The summer
is almost over, but that doesn’t mean things are standing still. Read on
to find out about new and improved hostels around Europe, some articles from
the media, information on various expos and conferences, as well as all the
news from the EHC... |
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New Hostel in Budapest
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Budapest has a new arrival... the Mandragora Hostel recently opened, and according
to their website they, "We wanted to create a place where you can free your mind
(if you want) and feel like at home", which sounds very nice to us. If you want
to have a virtual look at the hostel, check out their website:
www.mandragorahostel.com |
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New Hostel in Madrid
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The good folks behind the Cat’s Hostel in Madrid are opening a sister hostel
in the city, the nicely named Mad Hostel (Mad-rid, gettit?), and they are
having/had the official opening party on the 3rd September. Xavi from the
EHC office will be partying with them, and maybe we will post some pictures
of the fun and games in the next newsletter!
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New Hostel in Krakow
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Krakow is also welcoming a new hostel on the scene... the Hostel Momotown is opening
in the Jewish Quarter of the city. The hostel opened on September 1st, and
if you want to see more they have a nice little website if you want to check
it out. The Hostel Momotown can be found online at
www.momotownhostel.com.
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A New Look in Amsterdam
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The nice people at the Shelter Hostels in Amsterdam sent us an email recently,
asking us if we could announce their renovations in the next EHC newsletter.
As this is the next EHC newsletter, here it is:
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"The Shelter City hostel in Amsterdam has completed a renovation of its dorms.
Two big dorms with over 30 beds each (reminiscent of the old days of backpack
travelling) have been turned into much smaller dorms with 4, 6, and 8 beds.
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To further honour the preferences of the travellers, the building has become
a smoke free area, the hostel got rid of the lock outs, and the curfew has
been set on a much later time: 2 a.m. (The sister hostel Shelter Jordan has
abolished the curfew completely and is now open all night). More details and
pictures of these two Christian youth hostels can be found at
www.shelter.nl."
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No Hostels in Serbia
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We found an interesting article on the South East European Times website about
hostels in Serbia this month, or, at least, the absence of them! The main point
of the article was that although more and more young people want to travel
to Serbia, for events such as the Exit Music Festival, there is an absence
of affordable places for them to stay.
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Not only that, but there is a further barrier for anyone that wants to create
somewhere for them to stay: under Serbian licensing laws, ‘hostels’ do not
exist as a category, so there is no way of currently setting one up legally.
This situation will be familiar to many hostel owners around Europe, as this
issue has been a live one in many countries, and in some places the debate
is still ongoing. Hopefully the changes will come soon in Serbia, so we can
see some hostels in Belgrade and beyond...
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You can read the article online at:
www.setimes.com
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Youth and Student Accommodation Workshop in Berlin
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On the 29th and 30th August, the Youth and Student Accommodation Workshop (YSAW)
was held at the Hollywood Media Hotel in Berlin, and the EHC was there. The
YSAW brought together people from different sectors of the youth and student
accommodation market, from associations, travel agents, hostel owners and managers,
as well as other interested parties, to listen to presentations and take part
in discussions that focused on the issues of standards and quality in youth
and student accommodation.
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The discussions that followed the presentations centred around whether or not
there was a need for EU-led guidance or standards when it came to quality in
the youth tourism market, and what kind of aspects that such guidelines should
cover. An overview of the presentations and the discussions, including information
to download, can be found online at: www.ysaw.org.
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WYSTC 2005 in Toronto
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The World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) is taking place from the
10th until the 15th October in Toronto, Canada, and is a chance for different
youth and student travel organisations to take part in events, seminars and
trade fairs. In Madrid in 2004 there were over 800 delegates from 420 companies
and 80 organisations that took part, from over 68 countries, which shows that
the WYSTC event is the largest and most influential in its field.
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Some of the EHC shareholder hostels will be in Toronto, and have promised to
let us know their thoughts on the event when they return from Canada, and if
anyone else is going, and have something they would wish to share in the newsletter - most
importantly around the benefit for hostels and organisations in taking part
in events such as these - then please drop us a line and we will include it
in the next newsletter.
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If you want more information on WYSTC, including a look back at the highlights
of last years event in Madrid, check out the website at
www.wystc.org.
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Backpackers Expo in Sydney
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Another important event is coming up, this time in November, and that is the
Backpackers Expo in Sydney, which runs from the 11th until the 13th and gives
organisations and companies the chance to try and persuade the backpackers
or potential backpackers that show up that what they have got to offer is for
them.
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Again, we have some friends going who will be representing their own business
or organisations, and we will get their feedback after the event so that we
can let people know how beneficial people find expos such as these, and whether
or not it is something that you might be interested in taking part in next
year.
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If you want more information about what it is all about, check out the website
at www.backpackersexpo.com.
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TNT Live in London
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TNT Magazine, the guide for the Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans, has decided
that with the success of their Travel Show they needed another such event,
which will take place on October 22nd and is called TNT Live. There will
be exhibitors from all aspects of travel, work and study, basically encompassing
all the different sections of the TNT Magazine.
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The TNT Travel Show itself will take place in London in March, and you can get
information on both these events online at
www.tntmagazine.com/uk
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Backpacking in the Media - Article in the Guardian
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We found a nice little article in the Guardian newspaper about backpacking, including
some of the new ‘hot spots’ for international travellers that are set to be
the next big things on the backpacking circuit. A couple are not exactly ‘new’,
Bangkok and the Trans-Siberian railway have long been recognised as independent
travel highlights, but there was a nice write-up for Slovenia and Ljubljana,
and a mention for the Hostel Celica.
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The article also considers how global backpacking has changed over the years,
and is an interesting little read if you fancy a coffee break. You can read
the article online at
travel.guardian.co.uk
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New Shareholders for the EHC
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Those of you that have been reading the recent European Hostel Cooperation newsletters will remember that the EHC has been undergoing a process of signing new shareholders. The process is complete, and the EHC is pleased to welcome the six new shareholders who represent the following hostels.
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- The City Backpackers / Hotel Biber - Zurich, Switzerland
- Cat’s Hostel and Mad Hostel - Madrid, Spain
- City Hostel Geneva - Geneva, Switzerland
- Nest House - Valencia, Spain
- Alessandros Downtown, Palace and Legends - Rome, Italy
- CityStay Hostel - Berlin, Germany
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They join the previous 14 shareholders, and we’d like to welcome them on board!
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Affiliate Programme and Language
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The GOMIO.COM Affiliate programme is up and running, which basically means other
websites can access the GOMIO.COM booking engine, and hopefully this means
we will produce more bookings for the hostels on GOMIO.COM. The first to go
online, which is interesting for the German hostels, is the
Backpacker Network Germany,
and we have some that will be going online very soon, such as
Hostelz.com,
EuropeanHostelGuide.com,
Travelworld.com,
HostellingLatvia.com and
Halcon Joven - a
Spanish youth travel agent, about which we have a very important announcement
below.
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Of course, this all makes little difference to you if you work with GOMIO.COM - the
bookings come into the normal management system, and there are no fees and commissions
for the hostels to pay.
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One further point, which applies to the next part of the newsletter as well:
Languages. We are adding different languages to GOMIO.COM, and a number of
the new affiliate websites will be in languages other than English, so you
might want to add translations of your hostel information on GOMIO.COM. You
do this in the management system, as when you entered the information in English.
Just go to ‘Hostel Microsite’ and select the correct language from the drop
down menu when you want to add the information.
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Halcon Joven Affiliate Request
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For those of you that work with GOMIO.COM, one of the new affiliates, Halcon
Joven, a youth travel agency and website in Spain, has an announcement that
you might wish to make use of.
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They are planning a special promotion for the beginning of October which is one
of their ‘crazy weeks’ where they put together special offers, that are then
advertised throughout Spain on the radio, newspapers, SMS and email campaigns - a
kind of blitz campaign. The offer for hostels that are interested is four nights
for the price of three, which can only be booked during the ‘crazy week’ and
is limited to the time period from the 1st November until the 15th December - perhaps
a good way to get a few more Autumn bookings!
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If you are interested in signing up to take part in the Spanish promotion, you
can do this on the GOMIO.COM Management System, where there will be a check
box that states that you wish to add your hostel to the ‘crazy week’ offer.
Once you are signed up, when you get a ‘crazy week’ booking it will also be
marked in the management system. This only applies to the Halcon Joven affiliate
and has no effect on normal GOMIO.COM or other affiliate bookings during this
period. If you would like any more information about this, do not hesitate
to get in contact with us.
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The affiliate will begin on the www.halconjoven.com website very soon.
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Hostel Meeting 2006 - Where?
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Although Prague only seems like yesterday, we are already in the planning stages
for the European Hostel Meeting 2006, but one aspect that we still need to
decide is where we are going to hold it. We have already had offers from our
friends in Dresden (Germany) and Krakow (Poland) as options for the 2006 meeting,
but before we make a final decision we thought we’d open the idea out for suggestions.
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So if you have a good idea (maybe somewhere you’d like to go!) or are interested
in helping us host the European Hostel Meeting in your city, then we would love
to hear from you. As with the meeting this year in Prague, the 2006 edition will
be sometime around Easter, either just before or after, so just let us know.
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Also, if you have anything that you would like to contribute to the meeting,
or have any topics that you would like us to cover, then tell us.all ideas
are of course welcome. We will continue the optional workshop structure that
we used in Prague - and so if there is something you would like to hear about
then drop us a line.
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Update on the GOMIO.COM European Tour
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The European Tour 2005 has been all over Europe promoting GOMIO.COM and we have
had some great fun along the way, from the opening party at the Christopher
St Day Parade to La Tomatina just recently, with trips to the Running of the
Bulls, Amsterdam, Italy, the UK and Ireland, along the way. It is still not
finished, as we will be in Paris, Dresden and Prague to come in the next few
weeks, before we finish up in Munich for the Oktoberfest.
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We would just like to say a big thank you to all the hostels that have helped
us out en route, and if you would like to see exactly where we have been, what
we have been up to, and some pictures from our trip around Europe, then check
out the tour page on the website. You can find it at
www.gomio.com/tour05.
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We think this has been a very successful marketing tool in terms of getting the
name out to the guests in the hostels, as well as a lot of fun, and already
we are thinking about the tour for next summer and where we would like to go.
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GOMIO.COM in Cuba and Africa
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No, we are not signing up hostels in Cuba and Africa just yet, but we have
been sent these photos which we thought we would share with you.. the GOMIO.COM
t-shirts are getting far and wide, including soaking up the sun in Cuba, and
making a trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa! Take a look..
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Contact the European Hostel Cooperation
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As always, we love to hear from you, your suggestions, criticisms and general
feedback, so if you want to let us know something, want something included
in the next newsletter, or just feel like a little chat then do not hesitate
to get in contact with us at the office in Berlin.
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The European Hostel Cooperation GmbH
Johannisstrasse 2
10117 Berlin
Germany
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Tel: +49 (0) 30 2462 8500
Fax: +49 (0) 30 2462 8501
Email: info@gomio.com
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So that’s your lot for September - hopefully see you or hear from you soon...
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Your EHC Team.
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