One of our favourite things about working in the hostel industry is the people we meet and the stories they have to tell.
This is why we decided to start our ‘hostel hotseat’ series where we chat to hostel owners around the world about how they started, the issues they face and what they think the future entails for the industry.
This time, we are speaking to Gal Mor – one of the founders of Abraham Hostels who is currently managing the strategic business development of the business.
Abraham Hostels are an industry-leading brand located in Israel with properties in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Nazareth – their next hostel is set to open in Eilat in Spring 2020.
Alongside their tour company Abraham Tours, the brand are transforming the way people explore Israel by offering authentic experiences which allow travellers to get an insight into local life and culture.
In our chat with Gal, we find out about how it all began with Abraham, how they are overcoming stereotypes people have of Israel and whether dropping the word ‘hostel’ is in their future plans…
What is your background in travel?
I travelled from a very early age with my family and then when I graduated in Canada, I went on a 3-month trip around Europe. I’ve since travelled extensively throughout my life and now with my own family.
After studying at university in Jerusalem, I went to Berlin where I worked at the Israeli Embassy but continued to travel in my spare time. I arrived there with my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and we took a tour with Chris Sandeman who invented the tips-based tour concept. We became good friends and I went on to help him out with a few side projects so that really influenced how I came into the industry through the tourist angle.
How did you get into the hostel industry?
When I went back to Israel, I opened a branch of Sandeman Tours in Jerusalem and was the Regional Manager for about two and a half years. While working in this role, I realised two key things were missing from the Israeli market (which at this stage was a very immature market from a backpackers point of view).
The first was regional tours to go alongside the city tours we were offering. I set out in creating a regional tour company in cooperation with Sandeman’s – they did the free city walking tours and my focus was providing excursions mostly from Jerusalem to areas like the Dead Sea. I also wanted to offer tours that were more regional such as to Jordan and northern parts of Israel.
The second thing that was missing in the market was a good quality hostel. We got people coming on the Sandeman tours asking for a great backpackers to stay at – we would recommend literally every hostel in the area at the time and we would pretty much always gets a response like ‘oh I tried there but there wasn’t much of an atmosphere’ or ‘the facilities aren’t great’. It became increasingly more obvious that a really great hostel was needed.
As I was setting up the regional tour company, Maoz Inon – who is now one of my partners at Abraham Hostels – had set up a fantastic guesthouse in Nazareth. Built in a 200-year old mansion, it had a unique setting and was ideal for backpackers as it was orientated around the social side of things so had a great vibe.
He got in touch with me and explained how it was a pretty small set-up and he was starting to look for something larger in areas like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I knew there was a great need for it so we had a look at properties together and – after a lot of searching – we found a suitable property in Jerusalem that became our first hostel.
After that, things evolved really quickly – we brought in two more partners as investors (shortly after, Yaron came on board as well), signed the deal and created Abraham Hostels.
Why did you choose the name Abraham Hostels?
We chose the name Abraham because it reflected the values we were trying to bring to this new concept at the time. We wanted to bring the Abrahamic model of hospitality to the 21st century – it has been said that Abraham always had a flap to his tent open to welcome people and that’s something we wanted to adopt with our hostel. We always want the door to be open and for everybody to be welcome under our roof.
You mentioned before that the Israeli backpacking market was immature as you started out in the industry – did this make it difficult to get Abraham Hostels started?
Yes, for several reasons. Firstly, there’s huge capital that was needed to sign a 12-year lease for a large building and it was difficult to find someone willing to invest in us as two young entrepreneurs without a ‘track record’.
Another difficulty we faced was actually explaining the hostel concept. Israel was similar to the US in terms of the word ‘hostel’ having negative connotations – hostel’s here were not seen as somewhere for travellers to stay so it was a challenge to explain our intentions.
Now, things have changed a lot but back then it was pretty difficult.
How do you feel about the big players such as Selina and Meininger entering the Israeli market?
We think it’s great. It’s great for the market, it’s great for us – it makes us more innovative and ensures we carry on leading in terms of providing a fantastic experience for travellers.
Israel still has an image of being unsafe with a lot of security tension, but the fact that these global brands clearly think it is a safe market makes a big statement to the international travel market.
Of course, it’s challenging for us too as it increases competition but brands like this will bring a huge amount of clout to the Israeli market. Just like we have been investing in encouraging more people to visit Israel, they will too and that benefits us. If more travellers come, that means more people will find out about us and perhaps choose to stay with us too or instead. We know we offer a great experience and we have to continue to be great in order to compete and succeed.
How do you manage and overcome the stereotypes and perceptions of Israel?
Israel is slowly becoming a lot more of a legitimate and popular place for travellers which is largely due to the low-cost airlines increasing the number of flights that come into the country.
Influencers – including solo female travellers – have definitely played a large part in helping us as a brand spread the word about both the Abraham Hostel experience as well as the experience they have had in the destination. The message has slowly spread that Israel is a safe place to visit and travel in.
Going back to what you said about the word ‘hostel’ having negative connotations in Israel – have you ever considered dropping the word ‘hostel’ from your name?
We have thought about it many times, but always chosen not to. We think that rebranding and educating is a much better path for us than giving up the name ‘hostel’. By explaining the hostel concept, you allow that person to make a decision on whether that is the experience they want. It actually helps us in ensuring we are getting the right kind of travellers stay in our hostels and choose to go on our tours.
Since Abraham Hostels first opened their doors in 2010, what significant changes have you seen in the hostel industry?
Of course, large corporate and financial players becoming increasingly more interested in investing has changed the industry significantly. We’re seeing a rise in the number of medium- to large-sized hostels being bought by those coming into the industry with a business point of view rather than an ideological point of view of travellers setting up hostels for other travellers which obviously influences the market.
It’s also becoming a lot more professional. Hostels used to have a simple pricing strategy whereas today’s hostels – including ourselves – are adopting a similar strategy to a hotel or airline in terms of price yielding and using more technology to optimise our prices.
If you could create the ideal review after a guest has a stayed at Abraham, what would you want it to be?
Well, it would definitely include meeting locals and experiencing the local culture as well as the social experience we offer. I would also hope that they have learnt something from our tours which explore the political, religious and cultural narratives of groups in our region as it’s not something that is particularly common knowledge to a lot of travellers.
What is Abraham’s marketing approach?
I can’t emphasise enough how important marketing is to our brand. We have over 70% direct bookings across our hostels and even more for our tour company. We know we have to maintain a strong brand which includes active PR and a strong social media presence to ensure not only that this continues but that we don’t become hostages to OTAs (we do work very well with them too, though!).
Our social media focuses on our guests’ experience – it’s a great approach which has worked really well for us. We also know that for it to be effective, we have to be persistent. It can be easy to get tired of it and think ‘oh I have so many other things to do’ but consistency is super important when it comes to marketing.
What’s next for Abraham Hostels?
Over the past 10 years, the synergy of our hostels and the tour company has been fantastic. I’ve worked to grow the tour company and it is currently the largest business in our group and our hostels are doing really well, too. About a year ago, we put together a strategic plan to grow the tour company to double its size at the time and to open three more hostels – the next one will be opening in Eilat in the Spring of 2020.
Want to have your say as part of our Hostel Hotseat series? Drop us a message – we’d love to hear from you!
Catch up with our previous Hostel Hotseat interview with Dror Tirosh from Loki Hostels here.
