If you follow us on social media (and if not, why not?) then you’ll know that we spent last week in Lisbon for the Hostel Skills 2018 conference. This was our first hostel conference and our first time in sunny Portugal so it’s safe to say we were both super excited as we boarded the plane.
For those of you who don’t know, Hostel Skills are an organisation which host international conferences, offering a unique opportunity to learn all the specifics necessary to take your hostel business to the next level.
Attendees get together twice a year to discuss the latest industry trends and look for ways to increase hostels’ profitability and visibility in the global travel arena, and build a strong hostel community network with the goal of future cooperation.
Now we are back in the not-so-sunny UK, we wanted to relive the week gone by. Let’s recap what went down in Lisboa…
WELCOME PARTY @ SUNSET DESTINATION HOSTEL
The evening before the conference, there was a welcome party held at Sunset Destination Hostel. This hostel is in a great location right by the sea and has a huge rooftop where the party was held. The roof even has a pool terrace with stunning views of the city!
Since a lot of what we do is online, the party was a great chance to meet people in person and put names to faces. We even had chance to catch up with our client from Long Story Short Hostel which was a lot of fun.
But despite the cocktails flowing, it was early to bed for us as we would be speaking at the conference the very next day.
DAY 1 – INSTAGRAM, INDUSTRY SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ART OF HOSPITALITY
Unfortunately, we missed the first two morning sessions of Day 1 – from Cloudbeds and Dorms.com – as we were still prepping.
We were up third with our talk on ‘Using Instagram to reach more guests and increase direct bookings’. While there are a number of topics we could have covered, we chose Instagram as we wanted to share tips and tricks that attendees could go away and put into action immediately.
We also know how important Instagram is for hostels – many travellers now spend five times more time on social media sites than any other trip planning sites and 1 in 4 millennials have been inspired to book a trip solely down to Instagram travel posts.
Our talk covered a number of areas including 5 quick tips for improving your profile, what sort of content works (and what doesn’t), using hashtags, getting the most out of video on Instagram and getting started with Instagram advertising.
Speaking to over 100 people – most of whom you don’t know – is always going to be a nerve-wracking experience (anyone who tells you it isn’t is playing it cool – we promise!). But we loved speaking and the feedback afterwards made all the nerves in the run up worthwhile.
Next up was Rebecca O’Connor, Senior Partnerships Executive at Hostelling International who spoke about an area that’s very important to us and the industry as a whole – sustainability. Hostelling International is a worldwide network of not-for-profit Youth Hostel Associations. Her talk on the ‘Global Impact of Hostelling’ took us through Hostelling International’s very own Sustainability Charter, sharing some of the great initiatives they use to promote sustainable practices throughout their network.
Sustainability is an increasingly important consideration for travellers, so it’s great to see initiatives like this being embraced across the industry. Ultimately, we all travel to see more of this little planet we call home – which is why it’s so important to look after it when we do. You can find out more about Hostelling International’s sustainability work here.
Ivan Amiguet, Hostel Revenue Management Coach at hostel.consulting, then took to the stage for ‘Revenue Management 101’. Having no background in this area ourselves, we had worried that this talk might go over our heads but the presentation got back to basics and broke down the key elements of revenue management. Ivan covered everything from ‘why is revenue management important?’ to pricing strategies for sales optimization to what NOT to do.
The final talk of the day – and one of the highlights of the conference – was delivered by Ambrose Baptisa, Manager at Podstel. This was the first of three talks by experienced hostel owners and managers themselves who joined the stage to discuss the two most important factors in hospitality – staff and guests.
This talk was all about “The Art of Hospitality” and covered a range of topics including expectation management, personalisation and problem resolution. Ambrose explored how to create meaningful connections with other people which is something that is the backbone of Podstel’s brand – part of their brand mission is to ‘give travellers and locals the opportunity to share, belong and grow together’. You can watch Ambrose’s talk in full here.
‘GRAND HOSTELS OF THE WORLD’ BOOK LAUNCH AT THE INDY HOUSE
After the conference ended, we hotfooted it over to The Indy House for the Lisbon launch of Kash Bhattacharya’s book, ‘Grand Hostels of the World’. Kash is a professional travel blogger best known as ‘The Budget Traveller’. In the book, he gives a rundown of 116 of the world’s finest luxury hostels – it shows that hostels are more than just a place to sleep, but are all about shared experiences. As you can imagine, his speech at the launch was full of travelling tales, inspiring anecdotes and LOTS of humour which we loved. You can read more about how the book came about in Kash’s own words here.
What really resonated with us (apart from some all to familiar ‘snoring in dorm’ encounters) was Kash’s genuine passion for changing the perception of hostels and for telling the stories behind these amazing places. These are some of the reasons we chose to specialise in hostels too.
PARTY @ HUB NEW LISBON HOSTEL
Another day, another party – and this one was held at Hub New Lisbon Hostel. The hostel has a really cool space for socialising but it was the ball pool that really stole the show, with most of the conference attendees jumping (quite literally) at the opportunity to be big kids again. After a great first day, we really enjoyed getting the opportunity to chat about the day’s events with fellow attendees over a couple of sangrias.
DAY 2 – LOOKING AFTER STAFF, PLAYING TETRIS & THE RISE OF LUXURY HOSTELS
Day 2 kicked off with a talk from Benedita Vasconcellos, owner at Goodmorning Hostel Lisbon, who guided attendees through best practices for having happy staff who provide a quality service to guests. Benedita certainly knows a thing or two about keeping guests happy as her hostel boasts a fantastic online reputation.
Next up was Lior Skelpov, Head Hostel Coach and Founder of hostel.consulting who delivered a talk on Tetris – but not as you know it. This talk was all about identifying a number of opportunities in your hostel’s PMS and working out ways to become more efficient in order to increase revenue and therefore profits. Lior went through the ‘financial tetris’ process step by step, showing attendees how to smooth out their hostel’s inventory and group together bed bookings to ensure rooms stay on sale. It was great to get some further insight into the revenue management world and to see how these techniques can go hand in hand with marketing to boost hostel’s efficiency and profitability.
After lunch, Giovanni Quartana, General Manager of Hostel One (an award winning chain which has 14 hostels across six European cities) gave a really interactive and informative talk on staff management. As you know, your staff’s workload can be intense and it can become difficult to switch off from work. Giovanni encouraged people to chat about why they originally wanted to work with hostels and how their lives have changed since starting to work in the industry.
He then emphasised how important it is to take care of yourself and your staff and explored a range of different ways to form healthy habits in and out of the workplace. His number one rule – and one that we certainly follow here at Stay the Night – is to take work chats OFF Facebook Messenger and use other tools like Slack.
After his book launch the evening before, Kash Bhattacharya took to the conference stage to talk about the rise of luxury hostels. Touching on his own past experiences, he explained how hostels have reinvented their brand image to become cool again. He gave a number of examples, including Kex Hostel and Circus Hostel. He also issued a gentle warning to hostels to ensure they are not putting design above the experience itself. While the lines are blurring between hostel and hotels, it remains even more important for hostels to keep in touch with why they are so special in the first place – the social experience.
LEAVING PARTY @ LISBON DESTINATION HOSTEL
The third and final party of this 2-day conference (let it never be said that this isn’t a fun industry) was held at Lisbon Destination Hostel which is located in one of Lisbon’s most beautiful buildings, the Rossio Railway Station. After getting slightly lost and very nearly boarding a train in the rush, we arrived just in time for a tour of the hostel.
The space has been cleverly adapted with a indoor garden area lit by the glass ceiling overhead, sociable balconies connecting the sleek private rooms and local artwork dotted along the hallways.
After a few drinks and a lot more chatting, it was time to finally say goodbye.
And just like that, our first hostel conference was over. We were left feeling inspired by everything we had learnt and excited by all the new ideas we had thought of. Most importantly, though, we were grateful to all the hostel owners and staff from around the world who welcomed us into the industry and shared their stories with us. It was great to be surrounded by passionate people who genuinely care about what they do.
We’re already looking forward to the next one – Prague, we’ll see you in April!
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