Youth hostels
in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland

In only a few accommodation establishments there are such complex booking criteria as in the youth hostels. It is not just about the number of rooms and people, but also about the occupancy of individual beds in different room categories, about different lengths of stay and the division by gender. The Jugendherbergen are a very special form of youth hostels which cannot be compared to a normal hostel. Traditionally, they are very popular with families as they offer an affordable holiday option, but they also attract school classes or individual travelers. Additionally, they host all sort of conferences and events. This usually causes a lot of planning and organizational effort – not only for the staff.

This is different for the youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, one of 14 DJH regional associations with a total of 42 houses: As a result of a well thought-out digital strategy and with the help of the extremely adaptable SIHOT hotel management software, the online booking and administration processes have been optimized and simplified for both guests and staff. Even in the Corona year 2021, the state association achieved around 370,000 family bookings online – almost three times as many as the second and third most booked state associations.

The youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland have been working with SIHOT since 2004, and with the SIHOT.WEB booking engine since 2008, which made it possible to repeatedly adapt the desired booking parameters to the strategy and market developments.

1. 24/7 real-time booking

The challenge:
Conventional booking systems from other youth hostels usually show the rooms available at the time and send a reservation confirmation for online inquiries. However, the staff often has to write a refusal the next day because bookings overlap in time and the availability changes within seconds. This process unfortunately results in a lot of effort for the staff and great disappointment among the guests.

The solution:
At the youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, the booking engine SIHOT.WEB checks booking requests for availability in real time and – if rooms are free – enables a compulsory booking. The assignment of beds and rooms as well as the division according to gender runs automatically in the background. Simultaneous parallel bookings are no longer possible. In favor of an easy booking process – and thus a high occupancy rate – the regional association waives booking restrictions such as minimum stays or fixed room occupancy. In addition, all 42 hotels of the regional association are connected to the booking system, so guests can use the “All youth hostels” search function to request all available capacities with just a few clicks.

“We have designed our booking process with SIHOT in such a way that guests can book even complex group trips online immediately and bindingly – around the clock and without restrictions such as minimum stays or certain room occupancy.”

Carsten Groeger, Marketing, The youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland

2. Central guest data base for 42 houses

The challenge:
BWith around 480,000 overnight guests (2019) in 42 affiliated youth hostels, the youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland accumulate a large amount of guest data. An immense database that is continuously maintained by around 1,000 employees. This is not only very time-consuming, but also error-prone – and given the growing shortage of staff in the hospitality industry, a real challenge.

The solution:
With the strictly digital orientation, the management team also decided to simplify the cross-house processes through standardization. Less complexity, less effort, fewer errors. SIHOT.CRM enables all employees in all 42 houses to access a uniform and clear user interface. The databases are compared and updated in real time, which also makes customer communication and marketing significantly more efficient.

“As simple as possible for the user – that applies not only to online bookings, but also to internal processes. With SIHOT.CRM we were able to create compulsory and uniform structures for data maintenance across all 42 hotels, for example through the clear design of the user interfaces and mandatory fields.”

Carsten Groeger, Marketing, The youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland

3. Controlling instead of reacting

The challenge:
Due to the various target groups, complex booking parameters and diverse event and leisure programs, the administrative processes of youth hostels are far more complex than those of many hotels. Nevertheless, they are subject to the same market conditions and must be economically viable. In addition, there is no special software for youth hostels on the market so far, so many work with programs they have developed themselves.

The solution:
The modular structure of the SIHOT hotel management software covers all administrative processes of a large hotel, so all control-relevant functions are already integrated. This enables the youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland to extract and precisely evaluate the data they need for strategic decisions at the push of a button. Whether cancellation rates, forecasts or other analyzes that are relevant for controlling, purchasing and sales: With just a few clicks, the figures can be extracted and exported to Excel. The data evaluated in this way provided a good basis for decision-making, especially during the pandemic. For example, the voucher module that has been integrated since 2015 has ensured that the regional association has come through the pandemic economically well and has already reached the booking level of 2019 by mid-2022.

“SIHOT does not replace strategic considerations – but the software provides decision-relevant data and also makes implementation easy.”

Carsten Groeger, Marketing, The youth hostels in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland