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Welcome to the European Hostel Cooperation Newsletter for October/November 2005.
As always we hope that there is something below to interest you, and remember,
if there is anything you would like included in future newsletters then send
us an email to info@gomio.com. We love to hear from you! |
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| Hostelling and Tourism News |
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New Hostels Opening
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The St Christopher’s hostel group announced two new partnerships in recent weeks,
in Bruges (Belgium) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). In Bruges they have teamed up
with the Bauhaus to create a new look ‘St Christopher’s at the Bauhaus’, whilst
in Amsterdam they have formed a partnership with the Winston Hostel, a former
Two Star Hotel.
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For more information on the two new St Christopher’s projects, check out the
links below:
Amsterdam: www.st-christophers.co.uk/hostels/amsterdam_hostels
Bruges: www.st-christophers.co.uk/hostels/bruges_hostels
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Research on Backpacking and Media
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We were contacted in recent weeks by Brigitte Weiss, an Austrian student of Tourism
and Media who is in the process of writing her thesis on ‘Backpacking and the
Media in Europe’. In order to complete her research she is looking for hostel
owners who can answer a quick survey. She promises that all hostel owners who
take part will receive copies of the results, so for a few minutes of your
time it could be an interesting source of information.
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If you are interested in helping Brigitte out with her thesis, you can email
her and she will send you the questionnaire, which has around ten questions
to be answered. Her email address is as follows:
brigitteweiss76@gmx.at
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Property Available in Berlin
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Another person who contacted us about the newsletter was a Dr Alexander Meyer,
who is the project manager for an offer that some of you may be interested
in. A property is available in Berlin that for 15 years was used as a campus
for a Japanese University, and may be interesting as a place to develop into
a hostel. The details, from Dr Meyer, are as follows:
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- 30,000m2 waterside property in Berlin, with 64 room campus building.
The rooms are currently doubles and singles.
- The property is in the Koepenick district of Berlin, alongside the Zeuthener
See.
- The property also contains seminar and activity rooms, as well as a restaurant,
cafeteria, barbecue area and sun terrace.
- Extensively renovated and remodelled in 1996-98
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If anyone is interested in more information, they can contact Dr Meyer at:
Dr. Meyer Consulting
Vetschauer Allee 82
12527 Berlin
Germany
Email: a.meyer@drmeyer-consulting.com
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Review of WYSTC 2005 in Toronto
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Our friends at the Equity Point Hostels in Spain were in Toronto for the WYSTC
2005 from the 10th until the 16th October and they sent the following report,
which we thought you might be interested in:
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“The WYSTC is the annual event of FIYTO (Federation of International Youth Travel
Organisations) and ISTC (International Student Travel Confederation). During
the five days in Toronto it involved a tradeshow, business appointments, seminars
and, of course, lots of networking! There were around 800 participants at the
conference in Toronto.
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Some examples of the seminars covered include: Search Engine Optimisation, Standards
and Regulations in Education and Travel, and Statistics for Youth and Student
Travel. There was also a trade show with each of the participants setting up
stands to show the work they are involved in, whilst the final two days were
reserved for the business appointments - the chance for those involved to talk
to those other participants they were really interested in meeting and discussing
with.
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Alongside that there were, of course, plenty of opportunities to eat, drink and
be merry, as well as even have a dance. All in all the WYSTC is a very useful
way of getting to know who is involved in the youth and student travel scene,
and to meet some old friends and new faces. The next WYSTC meeting will take
place in Melbourne, Australia, and if you are interested in more information,
check out: www.wystc.org.”
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Tourism Figures for Europe
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The latest international tourism figures for 2005 (so far) have been published
on the TourMIS website (www.tourmis.info).
You need to login to see them, but
registration is free for those involved in the tourism market. Some interesting
figures include the number of international arrivals and the number of bed
nights stayed in certain countries. Detailed figures are available at the link
above, but there were some interesting things that we spotted.
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Some of the biggest rises (in comparison to the same period last year) were to
be found in the so-called eastern bloc, with arrivals to Lithuania up 22%,
Czech Republic up 11.9%, Slovakia up 10.3%, Bulgaria up 6.6%, and (in the south-east!),
Turkey up a whopping 23.6%. Most countries for which figures were available
posted at least modest rises, but only UK (10%) and Switzerland (11.4%) of
the ‘western’ European states reaching double figures in comparison to the
same period in 2004.
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American’s Favourite Places Abroad
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We found a nice little article online recently that explores the trends in American’s
travelling abroad, with lots of information including profiles of those Americans
that head overseas. Apart from Canada and Mexico, the near-neighbours and by
far the most popular foreign destinations, the top 5 overseas markets for American
travellers were: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, China and Germany.
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Although four of those five are in Europe, and Europe remains the most popular
overseas destination for American tourists, the rise in numbers is increasingly
elsewhere. In the top 6 destinations that achieved the highest growth in numbers,
only Ireland (31%) and Greece (49%) from Europe made it into the list, eclipsed
by the numbers for China (72%), the Philippines (63%), and India (51%).
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To read the whole article, just click on the following link:
www.tinet.ita.doc.gov
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| European Hostel Cooperation News |
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GOMIO.COM Affiliate System
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As announced in the last EHC newsletter, the GOMIO.COM affiliate programme is
ready to go, and websites who are interested in adding the GOMIO.COM booking
system have been contacting us and some new affiliates will be going online
in the next few weeks. One thing that surprised us was the number of hostels
who contacted us and were interested in having the affiliate programme on their
own website, for guests to book their next destinations.
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One question we were asked was whether or not the affiliate can control where
the bookings through the affiliate system can be made, as they were understandably
uneasy by the idea that a guest would reach their own website and then use
the system to find another hostel in the same city. We just wanted to reiterate
that the affiliate system allows the affiliate to control which countries,
cities and even hostels are bookable on their websites.
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For example, a London city website might only want an affiliate system with London
hostels, or a guide to Italy only hostels in Italy. A hostel website might
want everywhere in Europe available except their own city. This is all possible!
If you would like some more information on the GOMIO.COM Affiliate programme,
please do not hesitate to contact us at info@gomio.com.
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European Tour 2005 - We’ve Reached the End of the Road
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The GOMIO.COM European Tour 2005 reached its final destination in Munich with
the Oktoberfest, and we just wanted to use the newsletter to thank all the
hostels that helped us along the way. If you would like to see some pictures
from the tour, as well as the reports of the different events and parties,
then check out the tour page at: www.gomio.com/tour05.
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So, deep breath... big thanks go to (in tour order!): Circus Hostels Berlin, Enjoy
San Sebastian, Plus Camping Villages Italy, Bulldog Hotel Amsterdam, Ashlee House
London, Four Courts Dublin, St Chrisophers Inn Edinburgh, Equity Point Barcelona,
Nest Hostel Valencia, Hotel Caulaincourt Paris, Mondpalast, Die Boofe and Lollis
Homestay in Dresden, Sir Toby’s Prague, and the Easy Palace in Munich. Also
we would like to thank all the others that came along to the parties and showed
support for the tour parties. Hopefully no-one was left out, and once again,
thanks for the welcome, all the help, and for making the Tour 2005 loads of fun!
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5th European Hostel Meeting 2006 - In Krakow!
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It has been decided at the recent meeting of the European Hostel Cooperation
shareholders that the 5th European Hostel Meeting will be held in 2006 in Krakow,
Poland. The provisional dates will be the weekend of the 1st April, and hopefully
it will be as much of a success as Prague was earlier this year.
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We will be contacting hostels in Krakow soon to sort out details about the meeting,
and remember, if there is a topic or a theme that you would like covered in
one of the seminars, or you might be interested in running a seminar yourself,
then please get in contact with us in the office at info@gomio.com.
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GOMIO.COM - Some Developments
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Smart Access - For those of you interested in the Smart Access internet-access
system for your reception computers (see: here)
you can now download the system online in the GOMIO.COM Management System under
the left-hand menu, title: ‘Software’.
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Management System - Also on the Management System there is a new tool called ‘Actions’ which
provides you with information of all changes made to availabilities, rooms etc,
when the changes were made, and which user account made the changes. You can
do this by clicking on ‘Reports’ on the left-hand menu, and then ‘Actions’.
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Booking Process - During the booking process, if the guest decides that the room
or beds he/she requires is not available, they can change the dates within the
hostels microsite without having to go back to the full hostel list, so if a
guest decides on a hostel they can search different dates without leaving that
hostels page.
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Contact the European Hostel Cooperation
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We love to hear from you, especially feedback on the newsletter and anything
else that the EHC is up to.if you want to contact us, the details are as follows:
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European Hostel Cooperation GmbH
Johannisstrasse 2
10117 Berlin
Germany
Tel: +49 (0) 30 2462 8500
Fax: +49 (0) 30 2462 8501
Email: info@gomio.com
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| GOMIO.COM - Analysis from the Booking Statistics |
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Introduction
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We recently did an analysis of the booking statistics on GOMIO.COM, and some
of the results we felt were interesting for those of you who work with GOMIO.COM
and have beds available. Some of this may inform how you make beds available,
and there is also some statistics with regards the language and location of
users when they make a booking, and this may influence which languages you
decide to translate your microsite into, for instance. Some of them might not
influence you at all, but might at least be of interest!
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If there are any questions about these numbers, then please do not hesitate to
get in contact with us, and we will try and answer your questions.
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Bookings - How Far in Advance?
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We have discovered that 22% of all bookings are made between 1-3 days before
the arrival date, and this goes up to 35% for bookings made between 1-6 days.
So for those of you that have a release rule during this time frame, this might
be something worth thinking about, especially as we move into quieter periods.
With a third of all bookings made less then a week in advance, it seems that
there is a demand for short term bookings on GOMIO.COM.
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At the same time, a substantial proportion of bookings are made over two months
in advance. As we get to the end of the year, some hostels may need to look
and see how their availabilities are for 2006.
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PLease note: Some of the peaks are due to a shift in scale, not to be confused with higher results.
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Location of Access
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The Location of Access graph shows where people are when they make their booking
(as based on the IP address of the users computer). It shows the peak months
for certain users, such as May for users in the United States, July for users
in Germany, May also for Ireland, June for Italy and so on.
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It is clear then that the main ‘season’ for bookings is beginning at the end
of April and then running through to the end of July, slightly earlier than the
traditional tourism ‘high season’ - mainly because people book in advance with
systems such as GOMIO.COM. Therefore, for next year, it would be advisable to
have the summer beds available online before the peak booking period begins at
the end of April.
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Language of Browsers
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This graph shows the language of the browsers used to make a booking on GOMIO.COM.
Obviously, whilst the site is only in English, the English-language dominates.
It is for this reason that we have begun the process of translating the booking
process into different languages.
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What may be interesting for you is in helping decide which languages you would
like to translate your microsites into. After English the next most popular
language is German, followed by French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese,
and then Chinese.
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