Do you run a youth hostel? Do you want to find ways to make more money than you are currently making?

Here are a few ideas for you to consider:

• Sell beer (no brainer)
• Sell water
• Sell local tours
• Organize a pub crawl
• Start a bar inside (& sell lots of shots)
• In-house tourist guides
• Charge $1 for sheets
• Laundry service (laundry costs while traveling)
• Start a chain of hostels across multiple cities and cross promote
• Negotiate special deals (& affiliate program) with a few local restaurants
• Airport / train / bus pick-up and drop off

All in the effort to provide the perfect hostel…

Ever since I started traveling in 2005, I’ve long thought about starting a hostel. Or even a chain of hostels.

Why?

Simple. There are so many horrible horrible hostels, and I know I can create a better hostel.

I view hostels the same as I view running a bar; if you have a decent location and can’t run a successful bar, you’re an idiot. Okay, that’s a bit extreme. But you get the point. The same thing applies to hostels.

Why it’s appealing opportunity:

• Good margins – I think. Keep the hostel close to capacity, and you’ll make a killing.
• Great lifestyle – Live where you want, and hang out with awesome travelers all day. Listen to great music and socialize. What more could you want?

In my mind, here’s what’s included in the perfect hostel:

• Comfy common area with a couple couches
• A table or two with chairs
• A decent location. Sure, a great location would be awesome – but not entirely necessary
• Chill music
• Character – surfboards, cool artwork, a guitar, etc
• Bar
• Awesome staff – this is probably the most important item on the list
• Local directions, events, and info
• Common kitchen with a refrigerator to leave leftovers
• WIFI throughout
• Organized events (pub crawls, walking tours, dinners) at least every 3 days
• Great happy hour specials
• Snacks/food available until at least 2 am
• Comfortable mattresses with warm comforter (for a cold weather area)
• Metal storage lockers that hold a regular sized backpack (not a big one), latch, and can accommodate a small lock.

What would your perfect hostel include?

This idea is more of a non profit initiative and isn’t likely to make you any money. That said, it could certainly be a good route to build your personal network and, in turn, build an audience to market products your products and services to down the line.

The idea is extremely simple.

Organize the community of expats and digital nomads living in a particular city. Build a way for local businesses (and non profits and) to submit a request for a new website. That request would go to a dashboard, or an ambassador of that city, to be matched with a small team of digital nomads with varied skills. It seems a team of 4 people (designer, writer, marketing, and coder) could pretty easily build a fairly good, professional looking WordPress website as well as setup a basic social media strategy in a matter of hours.

Thought Process

• There are many many expats and digital nomads floating around the world, many of them with extensive graphic designer, SEO, writing, marketing, business development, and online marketing experience. The vast majority of them have have considerable down time while they are staying in a particular location.
• Most local businesses outside of the US don’t have websites — and if they do, they are horribly designed. Virtually none of them have a clue about how to drive business to their establishment via the web.

Therefore, it makes sense to match those two groups together with some sort of matching making service.

You could even team this with the backpacker time share service I mentioned earlier to give the backpackers something to do in their spare time.

Now, go make the world a better place and facilitate this website matching-making service.

[Photo via Smallbiztrends.com]