I often refer to myself as a one-man-band. It’s mostly a joke, of course. But we run a very small business here, without any employees. Of course, we can’t really do it all ourselves, and we do rely on others to keep the Pring running smoothly.
In-Real-Life Partners
Once a week, we get a much needed assist from the crew at Carrie Cleans Up. They’re a local small business and they specialize in giving the place a deep clean. When you clean a place every day, it’s easy to miss things. A fresh set of eyes – many sets, indeed! – catch what we don’t notice and ensure that the hostel is always sparkling clean.
Besides sub-contractors, in a very real sense, our neighbours are also our partners. We live upstairs, so our neighbours are our friends and we see them every day. It’s not too uncommon, unfortunately, for guest reviews to comment on the neighbourhood being a bit rough. We would love to contradict that, since we love living here, but there’s no denying that things can seem depressed, to an outside observer. Therefore, it’s always valuable to have eyes everywhere. We know our neighbours are keeping watch over us, and we’re keeping an eye out for them. We’re making sure that everyone is safe and comfortable.
Online Partners
We’ve talked before about how dealing with Online Travel Agents can be a trial. Fortunately, there are also online partners who do more than just take a commission! We try to keep a wary eye on the huge tech oligarchs, who are so unavoidable in the modern world. It’s virtually impossible to do business without them, though.
We’re partnering with smaller groups, as well. One such is NAHA, the North American Hostel Association. Last month, in Montreal, it was a real pleasure to talk to other people who work in the same industry. As a group, we’re able to get more data to help us all succeed, and share knowledge, and recommend guests!
Through NAHA, we met the good people from FreeGuides, and we’re looking forward to working with them. They provide an online portal where our guests can find information about the hostel and the city.
Perhaps our busiest partner, however, is Cloudbeds. They’re our property management software company. If you make a reservation on our website, you’ll be connected to the Cloudbeds booking engine – and being moved to a different page can be disconcerting to some people making a reservation. But don’t worry! We’ve been with Cloudbeds since 2017 and they have the tech savvy to help us make your reservation run smoothly. Left to ourselves, we would probably still be making reservations in a date book.
Unintentional Partners
One last note: we don’t have a cat! They think they’re part of the team, but they are not. If the neighbours’ (lovely, friendly) cats try to come in, please don’t let them.
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