Accommodation Panel
About
Hostels, Hotels, Camping sites and Student residences are represented within WYSE Travel Confederation by the Accommodation Panel. The Accommodation Panel provides much-needed support and representation for one of the travel industry’s fastest growing markets. Our mission is to be the voice and forum for providers of safe, affordable and clean youth travel accommodation in a communal atmosphere.
The Accommodation Panel’s objectives fall within the WYSE Travel Confederation’s Four Pillars. The Four Pillars represent the value proposition to our members; Trading, Research, Education and Advocacy opportunities.
- Trading: provide our members with new business partners. How? Opportunities to meet with buyers and sellers of accommodation at our events.
- Research: to help our members grow their business by making informed decisions based. How? Providing members with industry intelligence and market research in the form of primary data looking at both consumer research and industry benchmarking.
- Education: to keep our members up to date on the latest trends, best practices and business opportunities through educational opportunities. How? Deliver on and off-line educational opportunities through seminars, workshops, webinars and news posts.
- Advocacy: to provide our members and the industry as a whole with a unified voice on issues within the accommodation sector and the youth travel industry as a whole. How: By delivering a range of initiatives that members can get engaged in and by speaking with a unified voice from a position of knowledge.
Trading: meet new business partners at our events
WYSTC – World Youth & Student Travel Conference
Date: 18-21 September, 2018
Location: Edinburgh
The World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) is the leading trade event for the global youth, student and educational travel industry, with 45 face to face business appointments, more than 100 buyers and 30 educational sessions.
STAY WYSE Conference: Where the Hostel Industry meets
Date: January 2019
Location: Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The STAY WYSE Hostel Conference brings together businesses involved in the youth travel accommodation sector for two days of trading, education and socialising. Now in its third year the Conference has rapidly established itself as the place to meet new trading partners; from buyers, to operators, investors and suppliers.
ITB Berlin: Join WYSE Travel Confederation at the world’s leading travel trade show
Date: 6 to 10 March, 2019
Location: Hall 4.1, Messe, Berlin, Germany.
ITB Berlin is the largest gathering of the global tourism industry; attracting over 10,000 exhibitors and 100,000 trade visitors over a 5-day period. WYSE Travel Confederation has a stand of over 200m2 in Hall 4.1 where we provide our members with the opportunity to co-exhibit with us.
Research: stay up to date on the latest accommodation trends
WYSE Travel Confederation undertakes a wide variety of research. Below you can find a sample of our accommodation reports which are free of charge to our members. For all our available reports please click here.
Education:
Hostel cities: Youth travel accommodation and urban development
Greg Richards
WYSE Travel Confederation
Online webinar
Search, Shop, and Share
Brandie Wright
Phocuswright
WYSTC 2017 Montreal
Opportunities for growth in the hostel market: Securing outside investment
Harry Douglas
HVSITB Berlin 2017
Experiences create memories, but data is the soil in which they are cultivated
David Turnbull
SnapShotWYSTC 2017 Montreal
Advocating on behalf of the accommodation industry
Against the backdrop of increasing consolidation of major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), a group of leading hostels and industry associations met during WYSTC Sydney in 2013 to formulate a position statement regarding online distribution practices.
WYSE Travel Confederation has introduced a certification for WYSE accommodation providers. The promotion of a safe environment within a communal accommodation facility for young people lies at the very core of the WYSE Travel Confederation mission. The certification is directed at ensuring guest safety, as well as the safety of the establishment’s employees.
The Sector Panellists
Biography
Clink Hostels is all about bringing together young travellers from different countries and cultures. That’s why the Accommodation advisory panel and WYSE’s vision of promoting ‘cross-cultural understanding for young people as they travel globally,’ resonates with me personally and with what we do at Clink.
I believe strongly in the work of the WYSE Travel Confederation. With 16 years of experience in this sector, I’m happy to bring my learnings to the table as part of the Accommodation advisory panel and to be a part of the WYSE Travel Confederation journey.
Student travel and accommodation should be recognised for its contribution to the tourism industry and should therefore be an integral part of any country/city’s strategic tourism plan. I’m excited to continue promoting it as such.
Anne Dolan
Co-founder | Clink Hostels
Biography
I joined the advisory panel last year because I would like to contribute to our industry from an independent hostel operator point of view. My wish is that my contribution will help other hostel operators to improve their way of operating and have a broader view of the youth travel industry.
Eric van Dijk
Chief Operating Officer | MEININGER Hotels
Alexander Rivers
Managing Director | Astor Hostels
The history of the accommodation panel
STAY WYSE was formed in 2006 by a group of the world’s leading youth travel accommodation providers to address two critical challenges facing the youth travel accommodation industry:
Despite being an important part of the global tourism industry, organisations and companies active in youth accommodation services are not recognised or supported as such by local governments or national tourism authorities.
Youth travel accommodation providers operate within a highly fragmented industry and this niche sector lacked a unified global voice to represent its interests and a central body to collate statistics and market intelligence.
The STAY WYSE mission is to address these industry challenges and promote cross-cultural understanding for young people as they travel globally. This is achieved by providing safe, affordable, clean accommodation with a communal atmosphere that encourages youth mobility and by creating a united voice for this significant sector. The mandate of the STAY WYSE Association is to promote this mission on a not-for-profit basis. For the sake of clarity, STAY WYSE is a trade association and not a consumer-facing brand.