The idea of hostels is not new. Back in 1909, a teacher from Germany, Richard Schirman, discovered that it was almost impossible to find a suitable place in the country to temporarily accommodate a group of students who periodically traveled with him. He decided to correct this situation. He did not think long about how to open a hostel and equipped it right at the school where he worked.

Of course, over time, hostels have ceased to be just a budget accommodation. They developed and turned into an interesting space for active people. And the hostel is a profitable business project, with the right investment, of course.

First there was... a business plan

When creating any business, you should start by monitoring the market. If you are planning to open your own hostel in Ukraine, you need to analyze which cities have the largest tourist flows. Then determine the location of your object. Ideally, if it is located near a train station or a major metro station. Be sure to find out if there are any other hostels or economy class hotels nearby.

Once you have decided where the hostel will be located, you need to create a detailed business plan. It should include all expenses for launching your project and maintaining its normal functioning. Namely: repair or reconstruction, number of beds, bed linen, plumbing and more. We recommend that you create a business plan as a full-fledged financial document: with tables, graphs, calculations, and risk assessment. This will make it easier for you to correlate numbers and show it to potential partners or investors. And in General it is convenient.

Price issue

Answer to the question "how much does it cost to open a hostel?» it depends on what you have at the start. If you have your own housing, you will need funds for its reconstruction. As a rule, this includes cosmetic repairs, installation of additional bathrooms and equipment, partitions, bed linen and hygiene products. In this case, from 10 to 20 thousand dollars will be enough.

With an average occupancy of 70% , your investment will pay off in two to three years. If you provide customers with high-quality service and positive emotions, word of mouth will work in your favor and provide you with a 90% occupancy. Then your investment will be returned to you in 17 months.

These are quite optimistic forecasts if you adhere to the three main principles of providing service in hostels: cleanliness, high quality of services, and a good location of the object.

If you plan to buy real estate and equip a hostel there, you will need to spend at least 100 thousand dollars at the start.

Decoration

Important that there is no clear definition of “hostel" in Ukrainian law. As a result, there is no accounting and control over their appearance and development. But there is a concept of "communal apartments with multi-bed accommodation, offering long-term accommodation". There are no official statistics on their number in the country either.

But according to the site data Booking.com there are 430 hostels in Ukraine. 46 of them are in Odessa.

The resource also has interesting facts. The fact is that currently there are more than 11 thousand accommodation facilities in our country. For comparison, two years ago there were 3,500 of them.

The good news is that the design of the hostel is much easier than any other object in the hotel and restaurant sector. In other words, the documents that will need to be prepared will not take much time.

Even before the object is launched, the business owner must register as an entrepreneur. It can work under a single tax, in the third group of taxation. For such codes of the classifier of types of economic activity: 55.10, 55.20, 55.90. It should be remembered that in this case it is necessary to adhere to the state standards of residence – 4527, 4268, 4269.

To make guest’s stay comfortable

Learn more about the requirements for opening a hostel. They are not as strict as hotels and restaurants, but some points are mandatory:

These requirements, of course, are not an absolute guarantee that the stay in the hostel will be comfortable for rest and work.

Artem Dmitrichenko, Manager of the Friday hostel chain, explained this situation:

Most hostelers equip their object without thinking about such small things as where, for example, the outlet should be located. That is, they completely do not understand the concept of the space in which the guest will stay. And it is not uncommon for a person to settle in their zone and realize that there is no outlet nearby to charge their phone or laptop. And in the XXI century it creates a queue to the outlet. This is ridiculous! To avoid this, I'm not afraid of this word, shameful situations – we equipped our hostels according to European standards. We tried to think of everything. We divided the space into zones. The lobby in our hostel includes a recreation area and a coworking area. There are no outlets in the play area at all. It is designed for people to communicate with each other, not be distracted by gadgets, play Board games, read paper books. In the evenings, we arrange a movie theater in it. But in the coworking part there is everything for comfortable work: suitable lighting, furniture and, of course, power outlets. The kitchen is designed in such a way that it is comfortable to cook and eat there. Each zone implies specific actions of the people who are in it.

There is a large reception desk. The administrator plays the role of a good friend. Guests can order a cup of coffee chat, ask for useful contacts, share life stories. Therefore, I advise you to be very careful about the selection of staff. There is much less of it in the hostel than in other facilities, so the staff and their attitude to work will affect your ratings. Perhaps the fact that we took into account all these factors and helped us to enter the top five hostels in Europe and become the best in Ukraine.

Staff

It is the rule that properly selected staff is 90% of success.

A lot of attention should be paid to the administrator, who will meet guests, advise on basic issues, and help in case of difficulties. It should be a person-orchestra: a sociable person with excellent organizational skills and basic skills of management. The administrator is the chief conductor in your hostel band. They can conduct entertaining master classes, organize themed parties, and recommend interesting routes.

It will be a plus if other team members are also involved in the process of quality service as much as possible. For example, technical staff should know all guests by name, greet them, and wish them a good day.

Complementary services

Hostels are gradually moving away from the principle of selling only a bed. They seek to keep their guests, encourage them to return, or recommend them to friends and acquaintances. And for this purpose all additional services - are good. For example, in the Odessa hostel "Friday" fruit and champagne congratulate each guest on his birthday, if his holiday falls on the time of stay.

Some hostels take the nearest cafe as a partner and offer their guests a very pleasant discount. Others register as tour operators and offer guided tours of the city. It doesn't matter what you choose as an additional service. The main thing is to remember that our service is what will distinguish your object from the competition.

Promotion

Immediately give up flyers, brochures, and other papers to tell about yourself.

Your audience is online. So let's look at the most popular tools for its promotion.

As an example, I will give the experience of Odessa’s Friday. The children began to actively talk about interesting events and people who stay in the hostel. As a result, the hostel's Instagram became very lively and, to everyone's surprise, it started selling reservations. Yes, people came in, scrolled through photos, read posts, and wrote to Yandex. direct with a request to book a place for a certain time.

Tips

Pros and cons of hostels

Pros:

Cons:

Hostels are definitely developing in quantitative and qualitative directions. Over time, they have more and more advantages and there are impressive successes in the fight against disadvantages.

They are cost-effective, popular, and therefore very promising and attractive for investment.

More details at the link about investments in hotel real estate.

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