EASY DAYS AND FACING THE UGLY TRUTH
So, you came up with the idea to open a hostel, you thought it over, made calculations, invested and finally started your business. As time goes by you are starting to realize that it is necessary to invest in improving your hostel more often than you originally thought, as any neglect has a negative impact on the comments your property receive, direct negative impact on the sales and lower interest of the tourists for your accommodation.
WHO ARE YOU DEALING WITH?
When we look at the target group that stays in hostels we can even speak about a kind of “hostel subculture” and it is easy to notice that it is made out of relatively young people, looking for new friends, crazy experiences and eager to travel.
Seemingly, one would think that these are the people that don’t give special importance to the accommodation and that the major factor in their decision/making is the price. However, if so, the question is where the bad comments about your hostel do come from and how come these guests are so sensitive to cleanliness, noise, scents.
TO ASK OR NOT TO ASK?
Did you know that 95% of decisions are made subconsciously while only 5% are made consciously? This means that even when you decide to conduct a survey in your hostel in order to get the answers from your guests that will help improve your business, you come across two problems.
The first one is that you cannot know with certainty whether the answers are honest and the other is that for the most part your guests are not even aware of what really makes them happy and how they actually make decisions.
SO, WHO’S THE BOSS?
Thus, although seemingly unpretentious and modest, hostel guests who consciously know what to expect from your accommodation, subconsciously want to be surprised with luxury and their subconsciousness is the one making the final decision and evaluation. Put in different words, senses play a huge role in the satisfaction of the guests and the way in which you activate their senses is what influences their satisfaction with the hostel, recommendations and reviews on the Internet, i.e. your future.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
A large number of hotels and hotel chains around the world develop specific scents to make guests feel comfortable, scents created to associate them with something nice and that will contribute to a making better impression on the guests. Also, hostels serving breakfast know how important is the smell of fresh morning pastries that contributes to guests feeling at home and being taken care of by the hostel employees.
It is unnecessary to further explain how important it is what guests have the opportunity to see in the hostel, bright colors, clean rooms, spaciousness, smiling and friendly staff, all this has a huge impact on guest satisfaction.
Although often overlooked, the sense of touch is extremely important on the subconscious level, so better make sure that the linen on the beds is made of a pleasant and soft material that will soften even the most demanding guest. When the problem is put like this, from guests that don’t care about the accommodation we get the guests to which perfect cleanliness of the hostel, spaciousness, lack of noise, rooms neither too bright nor too dark, fresh and pleasant scent of the hostel is essential.
CAN YOU WIN THE GAME?
Hostels today are facing a double challenge. On one hand, there are, as shown, disguised lovers of luxury, on the other hand, there is an excessive invasion of new hostels being open almost every day. So in an ocean of hostels, the trend is to open unusual accommodation such as hostels in abandoned air crafts, caves, former prisons, castles, tree houses, lighthouses, in order to differentiate and single out from the competition.
Do you see these investments as affordable options for the hostel owners? We don’t think so. But we do know that the guests will always expect a ridiculously cheap accommodation but exceptional quality for any amount of money they are willing to pay, even if it was 5 EUR because it is still a hostel.
So let us return to the senses once again. Guest satisfaction depends on numerous factors of which even they themselves are not fully aware of, so you need to meet your guests needs as if he had paid EUR 500 and not only EUR 5.
GIVE IT ALL YOU CAN!
Therefore, take matters into your own hands, attack all senses of the guests and their satisfaction and your success will follow. Only in this way, you will be able to get enthusiastic guests, which means good reviews, recommendations, sales growth and profit for you.
