Think of your website as your shop window – it’s your opportunity to show what is on offer. Potential customers want to know where they will be staying, so exhibiting your hostel through photos or videos is essential.

 

1. Showcase your Product

Your photos and videos are a visually engaging way to attract attention and sell your product. Make your hostel the star. Don’t just put photos of your location – it makes people suspicious about what your hostel actually looks like. You can have photos of all aspects of hostel life, but make sure you have good interior and exterior photos. It also makes people feel familiar with your brand before they even arrive.

 

2. Tell a Good Story

No one wants to stay somewhere with miserable people, empty bars and dirty rooms – yes this is obvious, but you would be amazed how many hostels photos show exactly that! You’re selling an experience, so make sure it looks like a good one. Potential customers want to see what your hostel looks like, but also what the experience is like. You can easily use photography to tell the story of your hostel, your activities, how to find your hostel, the facilities, and the atmosphere through your parties or events. Make your photography more interesting to stand out from competitors.

 

3. Use good photography on marketing material

When you see a flyer or website for a hostel with low quality, dark and boring photos, the assumption is it’s not a nice place to stay. It makes your hostel look bad, and makes you business appear unprofessional in your marketing management. If you don’t have the budget for professional photos, then at least make sure you have high quality ones (even phone cameras can do this) and try to show your hostel at its best. These will also be needed for other booking engines to represent you and differentiate from competitors.

 

4. Make your Videos Fun

No one wants to watch a dull video, no matter how long you have to wait for your next plane. Your videos don’t have to be high budget Hollywood – it’s a great medium to make short, fun, creative films – and technology makes it really easy. Along with videos of what your city is like, how to find your hostel, a tour of the hostel itself,  try to have some videos that show activities and give a feel for the hostel atmosphere - use people!

 

5. Share

Social Media channels offer the opportunity to post and view photos and videos – even Instagram now has a video function. These are excellent ways to share and tag; increasing viewing, engagement and familiarity with your hostel. Remember your guests will want to share things they are in, so creating videos or albums of events they were at will encourage them to repost.