Do big hostels need a bar to create a good atmosphere?
August 13th, 2008 by Tim Uden
I recently read a post on the forums at hostelmanagement.com (a great site if you want the inside scoop on hostelling from the hostel manager’s perspective) that says that a large hostel without a bar is a large boring hostel and the kitchen/common room scene only really works in small hostels.
This made me think about hostels – both big and small – that I have stayed at and what makes them tick. Are small hostels always better and does a big hostel need a bar to not be boring.
I hadn’t really considered that before although it makes sense. However on reflection I don’t really think it is the bar that gives the hostel atmosphere, but the decor of the common areas. It just happens that most hostels pay more attention to the interior design of a bar because it is a revenue producing area.
I’ve been to a lot of large boring hostels, but there are also plenty of big hostels without bars that manage a good atmosphere. The good big hostels without bars pay more attention to design and have the common areas in warm colours, with interesting furnishings and some art to give it a cosy feel. Even a big hostel can have a warm atmosphere if the right attention is paid to design.
Being big doesn’t mean being charmless and impersonal and being part of a big chain shouldn’t mean that either. A lot of big hostels buy the cheapest furniture to fill their vast common areas and they end up looking as cosy as a hospital cafeteria. Those that put thought – and a little money – into their business have a better atmosphere.
As a non-hostel example, let’s compare multi-store chains like Burger King and Starbucks. One feels cold and plastic and the other is warm and inviting in comparison. They are both chains with thousands of almost identical outlets; the difference is that one has darker warmer colours, dimmed lighting and comfortable seating and the other has bright colours and cold and plastic furnishings.
Sure Starbucks doesn’t have the atmosphere of a small independent cafe, but it is a lot better than if might have been with a different interior design.
If good design can make even a big corporate outlet feel welcoming and that means that design can transform any retail or hospitality business and that includes hostels.
Now back to the question of whether a bar improves a hostel. Well it comes down to how the bar is incorporated into the hostel and how it is run.
Wake Up! (Sydney, Australia) has a bar, but it doesn’t really add any atmosphere to the hostel because it is downstairs away from the main ground floor common area. Likewise the bar at Nomads Capital (Wellington, New Zealand) doesn’t add to the hostel’s atmosphere because it isn’t in the hostel, you have to go next door for the bar.
However a bar is a more central feature of Nomads Industry (Melbourne, Australia) as it incorporates the main ground floor common area, making it a top choice of Melbourne’s flashpackers’ hostels. On a smaller scale, Kimberley Klub (Broome, Australia) wouldn’t be the same without its poolside bar.
For a bar to improve the hostel’s atmosphere; it has to be integrated with the common area and it has to have the right atmosphere so guests who don’t want to drink will feel comfortable hanging out there as well.
A bar can detract from the atmosphere if it is poorly run. For instance Globetrotters Inn in London and Edinburgh have bars but they just feel depressing and you have to pay for everything at the bar and elsewhere in the hostel using a prepaid smart card. It just shows that the management don’t trust their staff with money and the lack of trust creates an unwelcoming and uncomfortable atmosphere.
Big hostels can’t rely on the owner’s personality so they have to try harder to create the right atmosphere, but it can be done. However having a bar is not always the answer.
The high cost of roaming with your mobile phone
August 5th, 2008 by Tim Uden
There’s a good chance that you’re one of more than 90% of backpackers who wouldn’t dream of travelling without their mobile phone.
In most cases you’ll simply stick in a local SIM card and email people your new number. It is generally the cheapest way to go as long as your phone is unlocked (not locked into your home network). But let’s look at the alternative: roaming.
Roaming
Roaming works by forwarding your calls from your home network to a partner network in the country you are travelling in. Because your call is being forwarded, you are slugged with an overpriced international charge for all incoming calls and any calls you make are often priced higher than what a local customer would pay.
For instance, let’s say you are an O2 customer (on a contract) in the UK and you take your mobile to Australia. O2’s standard roaming charges mean that you would pay 85p per minute for a call within Australia or home to the UK and £1.30 per minute to receive a call.
It works the same in the opposite direction. An Australian on contract with Optus travelling in the UK would have to pay AUD $1.50 per minute to call within the UK, AUD $3.30 per minute to call home to Australia and AUD $1.17 per minute to receive a call.
On a two-week trip a typical traveller would make 20 three-minute local calls, 10 10-minute calls back home and receive 40 five-minute calls. That would cost our British traveller in Australia £396 and our Australian traveller in the UK AUD $654.
There is no doubt about it; roaming is expensive. However some mobile phone companies advertise deals where you can save on roaming charges. Are these promotions a good deal or not?
There are several mobile phone companies with an international presence and you would expect that you would get a good deal if you roam in a country where your phone company at home also owns a network. However this is only the case with Three, although Vodafone customers may save some money.
Three Like Home
Three operate in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Macau, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and their Three Like Home promotion means that Three’s customers can use their phone on other Three networks (although Three Indonesia doesn’t participate in the promotion) without any additional roaming charges. In other words, a Three customer in Australia can travel to the UK and be charged (almost) the same as if they were at home.
With the Three Like Home promotion, there is no charge for receiving calls, calls home are charged like a local call at home and you can usually use additional Three features such as free Skype calls.
Be sure that you check the fine print before signing up with Three as the details of the promotion differ slightly depending on which country you live in. For instance Australian Three customers travelling abroad get local rates both for calls in the country they are travelling in and for calls home, while UK Three customers travelling abroad only get local rates for calls back to the UK. However UK customers can use their inclusive minutes while travelling abroad but Australian customers can not.
Customers on a contract can take better advantage of the offer than prepaid customers and you need to be aware that it only works when you are on the network owned and operated by Three and not any local partner network. Be careful if you are a Three customer in Ireland or the UK and planning on travelling in Australia, since Three’s Australian network is restricted to just a handful of the bigger cities. If you travel off the Three network, then you are up for the excessive roaming charges that you intended to avoid.
Vodafone Traveller & Vodafone Passport
Vodafone operates networks in 20 countries with a minority ownership in another eight. This means that Vodafone’s worldwide network covers Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe. Unfortunately they don’t offer the same sort of deal as Three. However they do have some deals that are intended to soften the blow.
In Australia Vodafone have recently been advertising their Vodafone Traveller service, which is supposed to cut the cost of roaming, however on closer inspection it is not the same sort of deal that is offered by Three.
The Vodafone Traveller deal basically a simplified roaming plan that charges (Australian customers) AUD $1 per minute to receive a call and the cost of making a call is equivalent to the customers regular call charges plus an additional AUD $1 to AUD $4 connection fee. Becasuse you still have to pay to receive calls it is hardly the sort of deal that their advertising makes it out to be and certainly nothing like the Three Like Home promotion.
Using the earlier example, our Australian traveller in the UK would end up paying over AUD $354 if they were a Vodafone customer. Considering that this is promoted as a way to save money roaming, it is not a very good deal although it is better than conventional roaming.
Vodafone’s UK customers have a similar deal called Vodafone Passport where you are charged a 75p connection fee plus whatever your regular call charges would have been if you had made the same call from within the UK. Like the Vodafone Traveller deal, customers on this plan are still charged for incoming calls.
There are a few differences between Vodafone Traveller and Vodafone Passport, namely that Vodafone Passport is limited to fewer countries (mostly countries where Vodafone have their own network).
If our British traveller in Australia (from the earlier example) was a Vodafone Passport customer he would pay £203. That is a fairly good saving but it is nowhere near as cheap as the Three Like Home deal.
Other networks
We have already seen what Three and Vodafone are doing, but what about other mobile phone companies with an international reach like Claro, Orange, Singtel, Telefónica and T-Mobile?
I looked at the websites of these other companies and could find any similar deals. It is a pity since a cross-border plan with Claro would be ideal for travelling around Latin America and T-Mobile’s coverage across Europe and in the United States would make travel much less complicated (and probably convince a few more people to sign up for 24 month contracts) if only they let their customers benefit from their international reach.
The forums are back online
August 4th, 2008 by Tim Uden
We had a bit of a hiccup with BUG’s forums over the past couple of weeks. Last week we fixed most of the problems and now the forums are working properly again - and looking much better too.
We are still working on restoring the travel journal feature of the forums, which is expected to be finished in a day or two.
What are the cheapest days to travel?
July 29th, 2008 by Tim Uden
It is commonplace for airlines to use a yield management pricing structure and other forms of transport such as buses and trains are also starting to use this pricing system. Basically this means that the advertised prices refer to the cheapest seats, which sell out first; leaving the more expensive seats for those who don’t book ahead. In other words busier travel times are more expensive than off-peak times unless you book well in advance.
Naked Bus (a New Zealand-based low-cost intercity bus operator) reveals that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are generally the cheapest days to travel as there are fewer other people travelling on these days and less competition for the cheapest seats.
Obviously the cheapest days and more expensive days to travel depend on the mode of transport and whether it is a leisure or business destination; but in most cases Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest days to travel.
Travel to weekend break destinations will be more expensive on Friday nights, Saturday mornings, Sunday nights and early Monday mornings and air travel to business destinations usually costs more early morning and in the evening, but is often cheaper around midday (especially midweek).
You’ll save money by booking well in advance, but often it is difficult to book too far in advance especially if you want to keep an element of spontaneity. However it always pays to be flexible with your travel days and check a couple of days either side of your planned travel day to ensure you don’t miss out of a bargain.
Take part in a new adventure travel TV series
July 28th, 2008 by Tim Uden
Channel 4 in the UK are looking for young travellers who want to take part in a new adventure travel TV series.
The Ultimate Gap Year is a Channel 4 television series that follows a small group of travellers – typical to those you may find on a gap year – who travel around certain parts of the world for 2-3 months.
Channel 4 are keen that the series is truly representative of the real ‘travel experience’, and how important and life-changing the gap year experience can be. This means that they are looking for people like you to participate in the show.
If you are aged 18 or over, a UK resident, available during October and November this year and fancy a far flung adventure then apply to take part at www.ultimategapyear.com.
It sounds like a great opportunity if you don’t mind millions of people following your travels.
The Tipping Point
July 22nd, 2008 by Tim Uden
For travellers not used to the custom, tipping is one of those strange American customs that can make you feel totally uncomfortable.
For starters you are bribing someone for simply doing their job and the question of how to tip is just as difficult as how much. Many people find the concept of paying a bribe somewhat sleazy and the action of leaving extra money feels a bit dishonest.
In most parts of the world you won’t cause too much offence if you simply pay the amount advertised on the menu, but if you’re travelling in the United States or Canada then tipping is almost unavoidable especially if you plan on eating out.
For years the standard tip has been an additional 15% in restaurants and $1 per drink in bars – that’s right, in North America you are expected to tip in bars as well – however North American attitudes to tipping are based largely on guilt and most people now regard 15% as the bare minimum with 20% becoming the new standard.
In bars in the United States it is common to tip an extra dollar per drink. An extra dollar is excessive, but when everyone else does it you have to do it too, unless not tipping is an advertised policy.
During happy hour, an extra dollar can be 50%. Even 15% is often way more than the profit margin of the guy who owns the bar, yet the bar staff have invested nothing in the business other than their own time.
Some – mostly American – travel guides have huge sections devoted to tipping. Apparently if you stay in fancy hotels you are expected to tip virtually everyone from the guy who opens the door for you to the person who cleans your room. Based on this, I certainly wouldn’t want to stay in a nice hotel in the States.
Fortunately hostels are tip-free zones. The average backpacker comes from a country where tipping isn’t an entrenched custom and the low budget emphasis means that it would certainly be unusual if a guest started throwing their money away. This means that a bar in a hostel should also be tip-free. If it isn’t, then the hostel deserves every bad review they get.
A standard argument is that tipping is necessary because the staff get paid so poorly. I have been told that some get paid as little as $2.15 hour.
$2.15 is not much, but you can afford to pay a little more if you charge more for the drinks. The customer pays the same but they don’t feel like they need to bribe the staff just so they do their job. The whole process of tipping is really intimidating for many travellers and for this reason a hostel bar is often popular with travellers as a hostel is one place where travellers feel they don’t need to tip. Many travellers would prefer to drink in a hostel bar over a regular bar for this reason alone.
Wages are just another cost of doing business and paying staff is the business owner’s responsibility, not the customers’.
I have had low paying jobs like stacking shelves in supermarkets, packing CDs in a warehouse near Heathrow, clearing tables in a bar in Auckland and carrying customers’ groceries to their cars in Melbourne and I have never been tipped nor expected a tip. In fact I probably would have felt uncomfortable if someone tried to tip me.
The American attitude toward tipping seems to be motivated by guilt and the desire to appear generous in front of your friends. In America it is considered bad form to give a bad tip even though the service may be appalling.
It is one thing to tip in Canada and the US, where it is an accepted custom; however it is quite another thing when North Americans insist on tipping when they travel abroad. I, and I am sure that I am not alone here, do not appreciate it when this custom is introduced to other countries.
Most people I know don’t regularly tip, but in Australia it is starting to catch on especially in trendy inner-city neighbourhoods. My local fish and chip shop in San Remo (1½ hours south-east of Melbourne) lost my business the moment they put a tip jar on the counter. Now I drive an extra few minutes to White Salt in Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island, where I have discovered the fish is so much better. My local fish and chip shop lost a regular customer through the selfish act of soliciting a bribe and I’ll never return now that I have found somewhere better.
I don’t know about you, but I think that a fish and chip shop is not the sort of place where you should tip anyway. Even in America I doubt most people would tip in a greasy take-away with no table service.
When I travel in the US I find I can avoid tipping by staying in hostels, frequenting fast food places or food courts in shopping centres and buying most other food and drinks from supermarkets. However sometimes it is nice to go to a bar or linger in a cafe, especially if there is a free Wi-Fi connection and in these cases you are entering tipping territory. It puts the customer in an uneasy situation and making the customer feel uncomfortable is certainly not good customer service.
Fortunately a handful of restaurants in the US are bucking the trend. The Linkery in San Diego is one that I will make the effort of visiting next time I’m in California.
I sometimes like to eat out and I like to be in a comfortable environment where I feel welcome and relaxed and am treated well regardless of how much money I have. If I am paying full price for my meal – and eating out is an occasional treat – then why should I feel that I need to pay a bribe just so the restaurant staff do their job. Really is my meal worth more simply because a waitress draws a smiley face on the bill?
Tipping doesn’t play a big part in increasing customer service particularly when tips are given regardless of service (see “Tip Levels and Service: An Update, Extension and Reconciliation” by Michael Lynn of Cornell University, 2003, and “Incentives and Service Quality in the Restaurant Industry: The Tipping – Service Puzzle”, by Ofer H. Azar of Ben-Gurion University, 2007). If anything tipping only decreases the customer’s guilt.
I wouldn’t pay an extra 15-20% to a used car dealer so why do the same in a restaurant or bar? Restaurants should just raise the prices by 20% (so they can pay higher wages) and then add the tax to the price (advertising prices exclusive of tax is another annoying thing about America that would be outlawed by deceptive advertising laws elsewhere in the world) and then let customers pay the advertised price.
Changes to BUG’s forums
July 9th, 2008 by Tim Uden
We’re currently in the midst of a big upgrade to the forums.
This involves upgrading the software (done), updating the design so it matches the rest of the site (expected to be finished by the end of the day) and fixing the travel journals.
We’re making good progress with this, however in the process we have introduced a bug that is preventing people from reading forum posts. I have someone working on this and everything on the forums should be working again shortly.
Tourist information centres: as useless as tits on a bull?
July 3rd, 2008 by Tim Uden
Many people rely on tourist information centres whenever they travel. They are often a good place to get free city maps and find details on new attractions and accommodation options that may not yet be in travel guidebooks.
As someone who writes travel guidebooks, I set off with a list of every known hostel in each destination. But I’ll always try to visit an information centre to see if there are any new hostels that I somehow wasn’t able to find out about. We include every single known hostel in our guides and this is a good way to ensure that we don’t miss a single hostel.
Tourist information centres are not always so helpful and sometimes the people who work there can be as useless as tits on a bull. Sometimes they have an ulterior motive to promote members of the local tourist association at the expense of - often better - non-members and sometimes they are just plain clueless.
Many tourist information centres are funded by membership in the local tourist association. Hotels and local tourist attractions pay a membership fee that goes towards covering the information centre’s expenses and promoting the destination. When you visit the tourist information centre they will only tell you about their members and in some cases they will lie to you and tell you that other places don’t exist and even tell you to avoid the non-member businesses.
If you are travelling in Western Australia you may see flyers advising you against a certain hostel and telling you about a, supposedly better, alternative. You’ll see these flyers in hostels (particularly YHA hostels) and tourist information centres. The hostel is not particularly good, but it is no worse than many other hostels in the region, particularly other hostels that display the flyers advising you to avoid the hostel. The recommended alternative is not a hostel at all, but some cheap rooms above a pub with a depressing and unwelcoming atmosphere. Word on the street is that the tourist information centre is bullying the hostel because they refused to join the tourism association - that’s about as childish as union members bullying workers who choose not to join their union.
Because many information centres are funded by membership fees, the information centre’s job is to promote those businesses rather than give you honest advice. An example I experienced is the information centre in Coober Pedy, South Australia. I called in and asked about the hostels; I was told where the hostels were but after asking which was best I was told, “I’m not allowed to tell you that”! That’s because they can’t be seen to recommend one place over another. It is hardly a place to come to for honest unbiased advice.
Sometimes the information centres are just plain clueless, particularly if you don’t represent the average visitor to that destination. A few years ago on a trip around the UK I called into the information centres in Birmingham and Leeds (at the time neither city had any hostels) and asked about hostels in the local area, in both cases I was given a list of homeless shelters. That’s like asking the opening hours of the city museum and being given directions to Boots the chemist.
When you’re travelling it is important to see tourist information centres for what they really are: a good place to get free maps and ask directions to local attractions but not a place for independent unbiased advice.
Two new BUG guidebooks on the way
June 27th, 2008 by Tim Uden
You may have noticed that I have been a bit quiet in this blog and on the forums for the past six weeks or so. That’s because we have been busy finalising our latest two guidebooks, which finally were sent off to the printer on Wednesday.
We have been working on these two books since November last year and when it came down to less than two months to the deadline, the books suddenly took priority over everything else. This meant that posts to this blog and my presence on the forums was reduced to a trickle. During the last six weeks we’ve been working till 2am every day and in the last week our work day was extended till 4am. Yesterday I caught up on some much needed sleep - 20-hour workdays tend to be a bit exausting.
Every new edition of our guidebooks has been better than the previous edition, and this is no exception. This time we had the backing of a major publisher, which meant that I was able to send a few talented writers on the road to visit and review over 1000 hostels in Australia and New Zealand. The new reviews are more detailed than previous books, we also have coverage of new destinations, expanded coverage of places to eat and drink and we have redrawn all the maps so that they are clearer and easier to read.
The next couple of months will see us update the website with updated information that we gathered while researching the new books.
The 4th edition of BUG Australia and the 3rd edition of BUG New Zealand will be in bookshops in October.
Those annoying airline credit card charges
June 13th, 2008 by Tim Uden
One thing that annoys me about low cost airlines is their deceptive pricing policies where prices are advertised exclusive of taxes, leaving you with no idea of how much your ticket will cost.
That’s one reason I am more likely to give preference to low-cost carriers that advertise all inclusive prices such as Flybe or Sky Europe over airlines like Ryanair that give away free flights and then rack up your credit card bill on taxes, fees, fuel levies, excess baggage fees and so on.
At least in Australia all domestic airlines quote all inclusive prices - they’re required to by law - although that still doesn’t stop them for charging for so called optional extras. Extras like credit card payment!
I think it is a bit cheeky to charge an extra $2 credit card fee when it is the only payment option, yet this is common practice. It would be understandable if there was the option of paying cash, direct debit or PayPal; but that’s just not the case, yet we are still charged a premium to pay using the only payment method accepted by the airlines.
At least Air Asia X, the long-haul offshoot of Malaysian cut price airline Air Asia, gives you the option to pay by PayPal. Air Asia X claims to be the first airline in the Asia Pacific region to accept PayPal. As a promotional offer they are crediting $50 on the first 4000 flights from Australia to Malaysia (Gold Coast and Perth to Kuala Lumpur) paid by Paypal before the end of the month.
I don’t think PayPal is the most convenient option for most travellers, in fact I would assume that credit card payment is more convenient for at least 90% of travellers, but it is nice that we get a choice so we can avoid another extra fee.