This document provides an introduction and background to hostelbench, a benchmarking service for hostels. It discusses the history of benchmarking, beginning with its origins in cobblers measuring feet and Xerox formally introducing the practice in the 1980s. The document then covers how benchmarking has evolved in the hotel industry through services like STR Global. It introduces hostelbench as seeking to provide a similar benchmarking service tailored to the hostel industry, allowing hostels to submit occupancy, rate and revenue data anonymously to generate performance reports. The intended benefits are to help hostels make more informed operational and pricing decisions through industry comparisons.

1. hostelbench
December 2011

2. Introduction & Background:
- Fergal Mc Carthy¦Luke Bourke¦Fergus Cooney
- Early career in hotels – operations - finance…
2000 Caught a bug SaaS
2009 Benchmarking for hotels Ireland
2011 The call from hostels hostelbench

3. Benchmarking…history and evolution
• Xerox believe that they formally invented/introduced
benchmarking in early ‘80’s
• Robert Camp Ph.D.
• Introduced benchmarking to the logistics operation of Xerox in 1981 “..the
continuous process of measuring our products, services and practices
against our competition…” *
• *The Healthcare Forum Journal, January-February 1993, Vol. 36, #1, as "The Source."

4. Benchmarking…history and evolution
• Cobbler’s bench
• “The term benchmarking was first used by cobblers to measure people's
feet for shoes. They would place someone's foot on a "bench" and
mark it out to make the pattern for the shoes” Wikipedia
• Xerox Corporation in the 80’s
• “the continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices
against the toughest competitors or those recognized as industry
leaders.” David Kearne CEO, Xerox Corp.

5. Benchmarking…history and evolution
What are the odds?*
• Image courtesy of www.irishracing.com

6. Benchmarking…history and evolution..
• Formally and informally
• Racetrack – “bookies benchmark their odds “against recognised industry
leaders”
• Supermarkets – forever benching price of products
• Automotive industry- benchmark everything from 0-60mph stats to fuel
consumption
• Informal “Ring-around” in hotels : “What are you selling at tonight ..?”

7. Benchmarking in Hotels
ž Hotels – mid 1990’s
• STR Global
– 2008 Acquisition and consolidation of:
– Andersen/Deloitte
– Hotel Industry Benchmark Survey: 1996
– Overlook Hospitality Management of Stockholm
– The Bench – early 2000’s
Small Independent Irish company
Source: http://www.strglobal.com/about/History/STR_Global.aspx

8. Benchmarking in Hotels
ž What happens?
• Occupancy, Rate and RevPAR
– Used on a daily and weekly basis by over 40,000
properties worldwide
• Suite of reports
• Classified by City, Star-rating, CompSet

9. Benchmarking in Hotels
ž Why?
• Formalising the informal
• Reducing resource time allocation
• Consolidating channel search*
• Ryanair & Southwest airline

10. Benchmarking in Hotels
ž Consolidating channel search*
• Findings: over 100 hotels –
– variable non-standard % of room stock
• Attributed to multiple different channels
• Compare like-with-like?

11. Benchmarking in Hotels
ž Common platform
• Weekly Submission with ultimate goal
• “AN INFORMED DECISION!”

12. Benchmarking –the call from
hostels!
O Timeline - call came in 2010 – acted in
Summer 2011
O Research - spoke with industry luminaries
O Conclusion: Potential market worth exploring

13. Hostels
..the
story
so
far
O Beta trial since August/Sept
O Break / fix
O Ready to launch this month – Open for
Business

14. How does it work…
• Weekly Submission:
• You submit your data online - beds sold and
rate(s) - in confidence
• Likewise your competitors confidentially submit
their data

15. How does it work…
• This generates a suite of reports – (demo to follow)
• Region/City - Occupancy, Rate, RevPAB (Rev per
available bed)
• Competitive Set (Compset) – minimum 4 others
aggregated

16. Business Application and benefits.
Fundamental aim
¤ To help you make informed decisions
And / Or
¤ To maximise you bed revenues for any given week

17. Who’s interested?
› Owners / Managers
› Credit institutions
› Potential owners / investors
› Tourism boards – greater unity => Stronger lobby*

18. Security & Data Integrity
¨ Data integrity
¡ All data is stored in a commercial ISP data center
¡ Is it safe?
ú Data access is protected via a secure hash algorithm
ú Server itself is firewalled
¨ Can I retrieve my data in full if I leave the service?
¡ Yes – for 30days.
¨ Will my data be passed on to third parties?
¡ No. Other than regional reports E.g. Hostel
Occupancy for Dublin Nov 2011 was…

19. Here’s one I made earlier
§ Brief Demo.
§ Sample Id’s available to anyone looking to try this
at home.

20. Back to the future
“In four hours the ship blows up”...James Doohan
• Revenues are only one aspect of
benchmarking
• Cost benchmarking…KPI’s
• Feature kaizen

21. Questions?

22. Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir…
…agus go mbeimíd ar ais arís le chéile an bliain seo chugainn
Go raibh maith agat a GoMio don cuireadh.
www. Hostelbench.com

23. Next year my profile will look less
like this:

24. And more like this:
*Image courtesy of Crystal Henrickson, www.Yelp.ca

25. hostelbench
December 2011