About Us
Our History
BackpackingEurope.com was started in a small backpacker hostel in the heart of the Swiss Alps, after many years of receiving positive comments about other great hostels and backpacker hostels throughout Europe.
While recording more than 150 hostels, contacting them and keeping in regular touch, Robyn and Bertrand Kohli, owners of the Swiss Alps Retreat in Gryon, decided in the spring of 1998 to launch an automated website containing a comprehensive list of backpacker-recommended hostels.

They also visited about 40 of those hostels in 9 different countries of the same year, and by May 2001, as part of their direct marketing strategy, sent out 7 travelers as representatives to 12 countries and covered over 120 hostels.

Since then, the website has rapidly grown into one of the most popular and trusted websites for travelers on a budget heading for Europe. BackpackingEurope.com is also a comprehensive database, hostel address listing and graphic poster, all created by the traveler for the traveler.
Our Philosophy
We believe the traveler has a right to know of all hostel style beds available to him/her in any given town or city. Our "Hostel Address Listing" is an example of that. The website on the other hand, covers hostels recommended by other travelers.
The primary goal for BackpackingEurope.com is to provide the backpacker with a website that includes all the necessary information on the best and most recommended backpacking hostel in Europe. It has been designed in such a way that it is user-friendly and provides different types of hostels for different tastes and different people. The site also enables the traveler to give feedback about their experiences, making the website very interactive.
The backpacker then travels to hostels where other backpacker, are likely to be staying, which creates a network through out Europe, for travelers to follow.
As they do go from hostel to hostel as listed, they soon see that these hostels are full of backpacker like themselves, which is half the reason they travel ……., to meet fellow travelers.
Website domain names are fast becoming household names like the travel guide books have become. Word of mouth has started to happen, just like it did in the days when Let's Go and Lonely Planet forged their market.
BackpackingEurope.com is there purely for the traveler, as our number one concern. The website is automated so the hostel owner can keep the most relevant info in front of the traveler, we are also making the site more interactive for the travelers themselves.
Backpackers do need to know where to start a trip, what to see, where to stay and go ………, and other traveler comments are very valuable as proven on our Guest Book page. By networking for the traveler, in fact our bonus is, that we as hostel owners and operators have also come together as a network.
Our Future
Growing with the market trends is vital. We monitor the website daily to keep it free of unrelated information. We contact hostel owners twice yearly to prompt them for their updated hostel info. Our future lies not only with networking travelers and hostels, but also travel related products and services. A little one stop shopping, for ease of convenience.
We recognize the importance of overseas travel in the education of today's student therefore our main aim is at direct marketing to Universities and study abroad programs worldwide.
We also realize that most students are on a very limited budget. All of our hostels offer extremely high-quality accommodation at very reasonable rates (US $6.00 - $25.00)
Our website is a not-for-profit service that is free to the student/traveler/backpacker traveler. Having the sort of information at hand that BackpackingEurope.com offers is vital in planning a trouble free trip. We understand time versus money, so the more accurate the info available to would be travelers in their planning stages of a European vacation is our primary concern.
Our Achievements
The "Hostel Address Listing", available for printing directly off our website has been the most usable listing since its creation at the same time as the first poster in 1998. We constantly refer to the details of hostels on the listing both for mailing hostel brochures to other hostels and for daily recommendations, plus phone calls for reservations as a free service to our guests traveling on to new destinations. Travelers simply fold the 3 pages and take this listing as a supplement to their guide books.
Because the "home" of BackpackingEurope.com operates out of a Backpacker Hostel, then one can be sure the information available on this listing is a as close to 100 % accurate at all times, above any other kind of info available in the same field.

Our tear-away business cards are another useful promotion as well. The small block sticks to any surface and we recommend on the lower right hand corner of a computer monitor. These serve as the handy "note papers" all travelers need while on the net, the front side being a handy reminder of the best travel info site on the web. The same printed ad for BackpackingEurope.com remains long after the last card is taken, as the back card is printed as well.
Bi-annually BackpackingEurope.com produces a large-scale graphic Poster promoting backpacker hostels around Europe. As we believe that direct marketing is a source of survival, these posters are then distributed to major Universities around the globe.
Our automated site has many user-friendly features. Firstly, all detailed hostel information is literally 2 clicks away from any area of the site from start to finish. Navigation is of the simplest form.
Our guest book entries prove real people use the site, and with many other interactive features, keeps the site personal. All emails to info@BackpackingEurope.com are answered personally as well. Listed hostels have a backoffice address, user name and password and are able to change and personalize their details within their own page on the site, keeping info available to site visitors as updated as can be.
The statistics show that we now have 25.000 travellers viewing the entire site monthly, and our site ranks high with major search engines, such as Yahoo.com and Google.com. With our strong Internet marketing, we predict an increase of visitors to the site in the future.
Direct Marketing
We believe direct marketing to be a strong source of survival. While we all do brochure exchange between each other hostels, this is direct marketing; we feel that this can be extended beyond Europe.
Many more backpacker hostels are being developed in Europe and while we all try to circulate the same customer more and more times, we have to remember that they can only stay in so many hostels in so many countries within their chosen travel time, be it the 2 weeks or 2 months that we witness.
Our aim with the required help of all those in Backpacking Europe is to Direct Market ourselves as a group to Universities throughout the USA, Canada, Australia, UK and Asia. Other countries can be added to this list as we grow and become more financially able.
By directly marketing Backpacking Europe to the Universities abroad, we also have the opportunity to market to the exchange Universities within Europe. This targets our potential client much more directly. By marketing directly into the countries that they come from, this means they can then use a site like Backpacking Europe to plan their trip. It also means that the next generation of potential travelers coming up through the Universities will also see the advertising and this is when Backpacking Europe will become a known household name. We do not believe it is possible to market ourselves individually with the Universities, therefore as a group our existence is much stronger.
Linking Backpacking Europe from each hostel's website also gives more exposure as an individual hostel, which keeps both sites available to our customers without being lost in the jungle of the World Wide Web. Hostel or travel related info should be as freely available to travelers as we make Backpacking Europe.com.
If backpacker hostels want to be found it pays to link freely for exposure within the travel scene.
Now we also realize that many hostels rarely need more customers during the summer, as we all seem to be busy enough. However, having been in business ourselves for 10 yrs, we personally have weathered the highs and lows of economies with recessions and all manner of other hindrances within the world.
With the World Trade Centre issue still fresh and a small shell shock reaction that has risen and could continue next season, direct marketing exposes itself as even a stronger reason to be achieved. As discussed at the Independent Hostel Conference in Bruges in October 2001, our industry will more than likely be the quickest to recover within the entire travel industry. With that in mind, it gives us no excuse to sit on our laurels and expect business to remain as usual.
Young travelers tend to have less fears and when being laid off work or getting to the end of a schooling year, will most likely travel anyway. Our aim is to target them directly so that they are already aware of what is available to them once they get to Europe. It takes some of the guess work out of their travels, and once they get into the network of where we all advertise between each other, our brochures are starting to look familiar. To attract more business in the quieter seasons, that is then a direct marketing approach that hostel owners can apply to guests during the summer, encouraging them to come back for whatever reasons they believe they can offer the traveler as an attractive incentive. These strategies are purely up to the hostel owner and at their own discretion, there of course is no obligation what so ever, but certainly it shows you the difference of how we as a group can get more travelers to Europe and how we as individuals can get more travelers to our own hostels. This keeps our individuality and our independence.
While Backpacking Europe is being marketed daily within the World Wide Web it still needs to be marketed directly to our potential clients in the form of tear away business cards, posters and a listing / guide book format. Something they can see, something they can take with them and available to them at all times with the web address prominently displayed so that they can go on-line and get more details of each hostel and other travel info. Areas where the site can be improved are directions to each hostel and interactive maps.
Financial donations, Marketing Ideas etc.

 

www.BackpackingEurope.com