Nomads business and learning Centre

The role your hostel or tourism business can play in destination marketing

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:22:32 +0000

I am inspired today to write this article after watching the progress of “Go All The Way To” campaign (http://goalltheway.to). For some time most hostels and tourism businesses have been very focused on themselves. This is not to say that minding your own business interest is not important, but there are massive benefits for yourself [...]

6 ways to handle big check-ins at your hostel and get customers checked-in quicker

shansmith01 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:22:52 +0000

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Sometimes your hostel reception staff can just be completely overwhelmed with massive queues at reception. Although backpackers can get pretty used to waiting up to 20 minutes to check in, here are some quick tips to handle those peak periods and group check-ins. Give your orientation talk all at once and avoid [...]

Business plans are a waste of time – unless you make them live – here is a tool that may help

shansmith01 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:28:20 +0000

Image via CrunchBase About 4 years ago I put a business plan template in place in our New Zealand properties (I’m not sure if they are used in Australia). It was awesome, about 30 pages long, took two weeks to write well, was full of pages of data, research, competitor analysis, a list of steps and [...]

FREE housekeeping manuals – The most critical department in any hostel

shansmith01 — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:40:02 +0000

Image via Wikipedia I would say the housekeeping staff have to be the most important people in our team. You can have the nicest building, the flashiest facilities but if the place is messy customers won’t return and won’t spread good word of mouth. At Nomads, depending on the property we use either internal housekeeping staff or outsourced staff. [...]

Food for innovative minds – Book review – What would google do by Jeff Jarvis

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:58:00 +0000

Image by jeffjarvis via Flickr This would be one of the most enjoyable business books I have read in some time. What would google do is like a crash course in lateral or counter intuitive thinking google style. The book goes through the google story, digs deeper to find the business processes that make google work [...]

Using Google Squared to keep an eye on the competition

shansmith01 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:22:03 +0000

Just a quick post here about a little known google search tool called google squared. Might be an interesting way for you to help watch your competitors and suppliers. Check out the you tube video. Other articles you may like: Business plans are a waste of time – unless you make them live – here is a tool [...]

Are you losing heaps of money from not replying to emails?

shansmith01 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:11:10 +0000

Image by rscottjones via Flickr Last year I attended the E-tourism conference in Wellington, New Zealand and there was a statistic that if found quite shocking. It is common in the tourism industry to find that Over 30% of all emails go unanswered. This issue of emails not being answered or not being answered quick enough [...]

Night Audit shift checklist

shansmith01 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:43:02 +0000

In a few properties we run a full night audit shift. The person on night audit does regular reception work, a little security stuff and does basic book work. Running a night shift where your staff actually do some of the boring book work can free you or your managers up to spend more [...]

Reception PM shift checklists

shansmith01 — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:29:12 +0000

Following on in our reception checklist series here are the PM shift checklists Other articles you may like: No Related Posts

FREE reception checklists – Your guide to a smooth running reception

shansmith01 — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:16:23 +0000

Image via Wikipedia Reception checklists are a great way to make sure staff are productive and their activities are aligned with business goals. Checklists give staff direction so they know exactly what is expected of them in their role and keep them interested in their jobs. We split our reception shifts in to three and AM, PM and Night [...]