marketing, lean-startup, yc-how-to-start-a-startup, startup-weekend, affiliate-marketingMe and my friend opened a hostel yesterday, today we got the first reservation even though we weren’t ready we accept it. The visitors gave us an excellent feedback about what we can improve, and now want some more professional opinion ? We would like to get some suggestions about marketing strategy and also what to take care about at the hostel .
Ps: We are 20 years old and eager to work, every advice will be appreciated
Congrats on starting your business. You will find that you will be challenged beyond your abilities as the business develops. First rule that you don’t know early on but you learn, don’t panic.
I’m not in the hotel/hostel business, but my experience as a traveler is what the following is.
Make sure you understand the travel season for your hostel. There will be periods where you’re busy and periods where you might as well shut down and use it to improve your business and refuel your personal lives. Here’s an interesting article about running a Chateau in France: http://www.completefrance.com/living-in-france/real-life/a-year-running-a-b-b-in-france-1-5012349
(yes, a hostel and a chateau are at opposite ends of the travel destination spectrum, but lessons learned are lessons learned)
Keep detailed information about the time lapse between when a guest books and when they arrive for their stay. And if you don’t have very good analytics on your site, get them and understand the sales flow. That’s important because you’ll need to make sure you really, really understand the time frame for when people start looking at potential vacations to when they start getting serious to when they book. This drives when you coordinate your associated marketing plans.
Read other hostels (in your competitive area and outside of it) reviews on TripAdvisor, Expedia, etc. Understand what makes people give high ratings to those hostels (or hotels as well). You’ll find that if you provide your guests a personal experience and made them feel unique and welcome to your place, they’ll tend to give higher ratings.
While hostels are on the lower end of the vacation stay spectrum (although there’s been a trend in upscale hostels as well), make sure you treat your guests like they staying at a five-star hotel. This does not mean you have to spend all your profits on them, but it does mean intimately knowing your neighborhood, community and surrounding areas to give them good recommendations for eating, entertainment and experiences. Make sure recommendations don’t feel like you’re getting paid to make them, so any place you recommend, make sure you are personally knowledgable about it. And most importantly, find the hidden gems of the three E’s that few people know about or don’t think about doing. Everyone likes discovering something/someplace new, know a few of them to recommend.
You will get compliments and you will get complaints. Take the compliments with grace, but they are essentially throw aways. Compliments will help grow your business a little, but complaints may well kill your business quickly. Understand you may not have a solution for every complaint. If you can’t do what someone’s asking you to do, tell them and then offer an alternative solution.
My wife and I were in Paris eating at a restaurant. The couple next to us finished eating and, after paying their bill, they get ready to leave and the wife stops the hostess and says that it was the worst meal she has ever had at a restaurant, etc. The hostess didn’t know how to respond (make sure you and your partner and staff know how to respond). But my wife commented that it didn’t stop the lady from eating her whole meal. At that point, there was nothing the restaurant could really do, short of refunding her check (maybe that’s what she wanted). There’s always going to be a certain percentage of customers who complain just to get something for free. Figure out ways to compensate them that reduce the cost burden on you.
Make sure your product (beds, rooms, kitchen, etc) are top notch to your financial ability. Understand what the enemies of hotels/hostels are and make sure you do everything you can to prevent them (bed bugs, soiled sheets, weird smells, etc).
Finally, love what you’re doing and make sure every person you encounter knows that. You are the gatekeeper to your guests enjoying their stay with you and your city. My wife and I on a recent trip stayed one night in a place that we loved so much, we actually booked a full week to go back there later this year.
I’d love to see what feedback you received from the first guests but no matter what the feedback is (even mine), you don’t have to implement every bit of it. Consider points of feedback as guides down a path. Some will lead you in the right way, some will not. No matter what choices you make, some people will love it, some people will hate it and most people won’t notice.
I understand but the competition is very hard , these are small problems , solving this problem won’t get me anywhere. So from some information I gathered thise couple of days I have thought : using the first floor as a bar so I can attract local visitors and the guest’s have a reason to come so they can enjoy sharing their experiences Ps: Sorry for the bad english eventhought there are apps that can auto replace the words , I am to lazy to do that
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