That being said, the hostel is going really well. We’re the top rated accommodation on the island, and everyone seems to be happy there. To be honest, I’m absolutely stoked to be seeing the fruits of our labour. 

Before I got to this stage, I was completely in the dark about what to expect. I’d worked in a few hostels previously, but setting one up from scratch is a whole different ballgame. I’d find myself constantly googling things like “I want to open a hostel”, “how to open a hostel”, “why wont you tell me how to open a fucking hostel?!” …the answers I got weren’t really helpful, or relevant. 

So I decided to write a guide. I wrote this for two reasons. Firstly - because it’s nice reflecting on the three-year journey that has gotten me here; I think if i don’t do this, the memories will vaporise into obscurity. Secondly - because most people who decide they want to have a hostel have never opened a hostel before. I think anyone who does this sort of thing is taking a stab in the dark, and that in itself is a brave thing to do.

So this is my self-reflective guide to opening a hostel:

Way Before You Start

1. Why do you want to start a hostel?

Is it to make money? Is it to showcase a beautiful part of the world to travellers? Is it because you like the idea of partying most nights? is it to meet interesting people from around the world? is it because you want to surf every day? is it because you see it as an avenue to larger aspirations? Those were my reasons at the beginning… Whatever yours may be, (and I don’t think there are too many wrong reasons for wanting to open a hostel, unless you want a hostel like the hostel in the horror movie… Hostel) recognise that this is going to be a business and treat it as such. 

This question is important because it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be what you originally think. Consider your rationality for why you want to do this, and then consider all the potential roadblocks - what are the cultural issues? how are you going to handle this financially? do you really want to open a hostel, or do you just like travelling? do you need to learn a language? are you constructing or renovating? are you going to open a restaurant? if so, how? how are you going to market it? what activities are you going to offer? etc. etc. and the list goes on.

Consider everything you can, and if your answer is still yes. Then that’s awesome. But just so you’re aware - down the line the questions are going to be more like “what do i do when this inevitably goes wrong?”, “what?! how did that go wrong?” and “holy fuck I didn’t think that would go wrong… again!”

I think that’s just business.

Next you have to consider what type of hostel you are going to open, because that is going to have a major affect on how you go about construction. 

2. Construction

I don’t think it’s my place to advise on the stylistic approach that one should take, because every site and every hostel is inevitably different. But there are a few things I learnt in the construction phase:

Firstly, find a construction team you can trust, and who’s vision reflects your own. Realistically, you won’t be overseeing construction, so find a guy who isn’t going to rip you off on materials, who isn’t going to make mistakes, and who is going to communicate effectively. Easier said than done, but don’t rush into anything. Make sure you get this right because otherwise there will be a whole lot of financial and emotional headaches down the track.

Secondly - people don’t spend much time in the rooms, but they are going to base their bookings off what the rooms look like. You can have the most amazing common area in the world, but if your bed is a metal bunkbed in the middle of the harshly-lit 16 person dormitory, with thin mattresses and no curtains… you’re not going to get bookings. Backpackers are so accustomed to living in shared spaces that even the slightest notion of privacy is going to metaphorically take their panties off. 

Dark privacy curtains are awesome. You want beds that don’t make any noises, good mattresses and pillows. A personal power plug / charging station is nice. Ample storage and a secure locker is also very nice. This is what we offer at the Big K. I get many compliments, and it brings the review score up because I’m almost guaranteed a “10” for comfort when it comes to review time. It’s just a little bit of extra effort during construction that pays off in the long run. If you’re in a position where your beds aren’t going to be a permanent fixture, think of how you can maximise the comfort and privacy of your guests. Curtains are probably the easiest. 

In the future, I’d like to create kPods. A cross fertilisation of the capsule hotel, the hostel dorm, and an early version iPod shuffle. But, my thoughts aren’t limited to early 2000’s bangaz in the bedroom.

I’ve been thinking of ways to further enhance the hostel experience when it comes to these creature comforts. I think the aim is to have a space where people immediately feel comfortable. So create spaces that generate socialising. Give everyone their bit. A huge part of running a hostel is getting these damn tourists to talk to each other. The more they chat the easier life is for you, the less they’ll ask annoying questions, and the more likely they are to buy beers. A good common area, that feels safe and homey is the best. You don’t want a hostel where people are sitting in secluded little chairs on their phones.

Lastly, whilst it’s a hostel you should still offer private rooms if you can. Surprisingly, mine are booked out almost constantly. There’s heaps of couples and people who value their privacy, that still want the benefits of a hostel experience. However, be prepared for the wanky French couple who will complain about everything. At present, we have about 30 dorm beds, and only 3 private rooms. But 80% of our complaints come from the private rooms. 

2 Years Later… aka Just Before You Launch

So, you have a newly constructed/renovated hostel. You’ve probably spent way more money than you would have liked, it’s taken a year longer than you expected, and a big part of you wonders why you wanted to do this in the first place.
But, you’ve also got a newly constructed/renovated hostel. Congratulations! That motherfucker looks great and you should be proud. Here is your next set of challenges, and some more concrete advice.

3. How are you going to stay sane?

4. Get a Channel Manager

In order to fill up your beds, you need people to be able to find your hostel on the internet. This requires using multiple booking agencies, which are called OTA’s. These are websites like Booking, Hostel World, Agoda, and many more. They’re frustrating to work with, they’re all different, and they’re all annoying - but without them, you’re not going to get bookings. 

A channel manager effectively works as a vehicle that separates you from the OTAs. Every time a bed in your hostel is booked, it goes through the channel manager and effectively plods them all in one manageable system for your operating pleasure. If you don’t have one, you’re going to be spending hours balancing your bookings and available / non-available rooms - and that would suck.

Personally, I use Cloudbeds. It’s around $1000USD per year, which seems like a lot - but, it’s a great system that saves me time. I can’t stress this one enough, it doesn't matter which channel manager you go with, but definitely get one before you put your hostel on the internet. 

5. Setting up OTAs & Getting Your Hostel Online

My least favourite part of setting up a hostel. It takes ages. They’re all super shit to deal with. But you just got to do it. Take good photos. Follow the rules on the OTA sites. They’ll have guidelines. Just do it. 

I didn’t do it properly when I first started because I thought ‘who cares what a toilet looks like’…. turns out everyone cares. So just do it. 

Do it once and do it well, because it’s one of those shit things you just got to do. Set them up, link them to your channel manager and then never worry about them again. Until you inevitably have to change everything two months later.

6. Staff

If you want to have good staff you need to understand what kind of a leader you are going to be - and in order to be an effective leader, you have to understand what kind of a person you are - and to do that you have to be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. It’s a lot, but if you are negligent toward this, and just act like a stereotypical boss you see in cartoons, people aren’t going to want to work for you.

You want people to do something because they care, not because they’re getting paid. Obviously money helps - but everyone can tell when someone likes their job. So, how do you get your staff to care?

Assuming that you’re not a dickhead, my first piece of advice is to be the right amount of approachable. There is a fine line between being a good boss and being a friend. You want your staff to feel comfortable to talk to you, and not be scared to tell you when they’ve fucked up - but you also don’t want them to take advantage of you. If your staff cross over into friendship*, it will turn into an issue.

*This is different from pre-existing mates who want to work at your hostel

Secondly, be chill. Don’t sweat the little things. At the end of the day, think of yourself as the last line of defence. Heaps of things are going to go wrong, staff wont show up, people are going to complain, guests are going to leave bad reviews, and it’s all going to suck and it’s all going to offend you. If you’re not chill, everyone and everything is going to go fucking loco. Try not to dwell on the shitty stuff, focus on the good things, and most importantly, stay chill.

Hire people whose strengths counter balance yours. For me personally, it was getting a good manager. It turned out to be the best decision we’d made. I can’t speak Indonesian well enough. I’m no good with balancing money, and I get hostile toward shitty guests. So I hired a manager who was amiable toward complaining guests, who was fluent in both English and Indonesian, and who actually liked doing accounting. She can do things, that I will never be able to do - but similarly, my strengths counteract her weaknesses.

Lastly, and most importantly - empower your staff. Let them make decisions. Constantly ask them what they think. Keep them involved in your decision making processes. If you let the people around you make a positive difference, they will. Don’t be afraid to let them come up with ideas. At the end of the day if you don’t like them you can just say no - but they know the ins and outs of their specific job better than you - they’ll understand how to make it better. 

7. Support

I think it’s almost impossible to do something big without the help of good people. A solid support network contributes to the overall vision and production of the project, and allows you to share the experiences, whether they be good or bad.

I’m lucky because I am doing this with my dad, without him none of this would be possible. He and his wife have been a constant source of imagination, support and encouragement. I love it when my mates come up from Australia. One stayed for an extended period of time - using the hostel as a space to springboard concepts and ideas for his own business, which was awesome. Lastly, I’ve got my girlfriend with me, who has given up a considerable amount to be here. She is both my rock and my safety net. Except, she’s more like a trampoline than a safety net, because every time I fall she bounces me back up again. It’s incredibly reassuring to know that in any circumstance, someone’s got you.

Just having friends and family around you is what makes this kind of thing special. Don’t get trapped in to treating them like staff, because they’re not. They will bring a different set of rules, challenges, expectations, skills and pleasures. In return, you have to support them back. It goes both ways. You won’t be able to do it without their help, and they wouldn’t be able to do it without yours.

Your Hostel is Up and Running! Now what?

8. Taking Advantage of the Early Adaptors

Awesome, awesome, awesome. It’s taken years, everything is looking schlick. You’ve gone through all the hard yards, you’ve bested those annoying fuckers on Expedia, and you have a team of epic staff… but where are the guests?!

Unfortunately - what you don’t have is a reputation. Those bastard OTA’s won’t put you on their front page because you haven’t gotten enough reviews yet. So how do you counter-act this?

You can create special deals, and sell your rooms for cheaper - which is frustrating as fuck considering you’ve just opened and you want to finally make some money. You can also get your friends to leave fake reviews to make your hostel look more appealing (Just to clarify, I did NOT do this / cheers guys). Lastly, you can give the guests who do come to your hostel a really good time. Ask them a lot of questions. These are the guys who have decided to take the risk and stay at your hostel, despite it not having a rating online. These people are called early adaptors.

Early adaptors is a pretty standard marketing term. They’re just the people who first use your product and they’re awesome for gaining valuable insights. It sounds weird, but the first month you’re open is an irreplaceable time for learning how to run your hostel more effectively. You’re probably going to have around 5 people staying with you, and you’ll get to understand their expectations pretty intimately. This is the time for creating good operating systems. Ask them what they liked, what they didn’t like, what could be better etc. because in a month’s time the job will be too gnarly, and you won’t have as much time to pause and reflect.

9. Work with the other hostels

In business it doesn’t really make sense to work with your competitor. But hostels are different. If hostels are flowers and tourists are bees. You want to be in a garden full of the best looking, tastiest, sexiest, most hospitable flowers. More flowers = more bees, more bees = more honey … and you want dat honey baby.

Organise fun activities with the other hostels - at the end of the day, the end game is to show the guests a fun time. What’s more fun than a pub crawl? or a hostel vs. hostel games night? Alternately you can use your powers for good and organise beach clean ups, or some such shit like that.

Basically, if the other hostels in the flower garden don’t like you - you’re gonna have a bad time…

10. Slowly Slowly

This piece of advice could really be given at anytime - but it’s an important one. When you have an idea, you want to execute that idea as quickly and effectively as possible. Oftentimes you’ll nail one part, but another part will be lacking. This is because you’ve focussed on what you want to focus on, rather than looking at the big picture.

In real life, you have to look at the big picture. If you don’t, you’re fucked. This isn’t a test where 80% is ‘a good score’. Real life doesn’t have good scores. It’s just a yes or a no. Are you going to go to the 4/5 restaurant or the 5/5 restaurant?

My mentality toward doing things is to do it one step at a time, do it slowly, and do your best. You have to plan for worst case scenario because planning for the worst destroys hope. That sentence sounds really negative, but it’s actually a positive. If you plan for the worst, you can prevent the worst - and if you can prevent the worst, you don’t need hope because you know it’s going to work.

Obviously, there are some things in life that are outside of your control. Sometimes you’ll get unlucky. Sometimes some random unforeseen crazy shit will materialise and change everything. That’s life. But there is no excuse for not doing your best if it’s something you care about. 

I’m currently in the process of launching a restaurant. We have unofficially been open since May, and the people who eat there reckon it’s one of the best food places on the island - but we haven’t gone online because it’s not ready yet. Once we do there is no going back, we are opening the doors for nasty internet judgement, and that shit can fuck you.

But if it’s good, and we get good reviews - well, then we’re smooth sailing. So we got to get it right. Right now I think it’ll be good… I hope it will be good…. but I’m not going to launch it until I know it’ll be good.

11. Re-assess Your Priorities

The last piece of advice is to take a step back and think about what you want for the next few years. If I look at what I thought I was getting myself in to three years ago, I’d realise that whilst I’ve moved in the exact direction I wanted to go - pretty much everything is different to how I expected.

It’s time to re-assess what’s important to you. Look at how the hostel is operating. What works? what doesn’t work? are you making money? if not, why not? how can you delegate more effectively? do you want to trim your role back? or do you want to continue being hands on? do you want to expand? or are you content staying the same size? are there other opportunities? etc.

It’s really weird trying to sneak a peak into tomorrow when so much is happening today. But these are the types of questions I’m asking myself right now…. and you wouldn’t believe it, but google still isn't giving me the answers.

by Jake James