Building a hostel: Step 1

Finding the right spot

This without doubt is one of the most important if not the most important step. There are a lot of factors that you have to take into account when picking your spot.

1) Transport: you want your hostel to be easy reachable especially when situated in a major city. In my case the hostel won't be build in a major city but in a small village. I personally choose a place that is a little bit hard to reach as it will add up to the experience. Travelers can take a mini-bus from any of the main cities (Kutaisi, Tbilisi, Batumi). These drive frequently and are cheap. The mini buses will stop at Khulo the main village from the region. Here next to the bus station you will find a 2 km long cable car that was build during soviet union. This cable car is the main touristic attraction and will bring you to the village of Tago. From this point you will be able to see the hostel up on the hill. The hostel is also reachable from Khulo by a 8km long road.

*picture: soviet union cable car

2) Potential: you should think further then just the hostel when choosing a place. Are there more opportunities? What are the other things this place doesn't have? How will tourism develop here? These are some of the questions you should ask yourself. When you have a good running hostel you might want to expand in the future with other services or activities. In Khulo/tago you will find that tourism is growing on a rapid phase. The infrastructure is running behind and therefore the place has a lot of potential. Next to the hostel there is the possibility to offer extra services and activities like: mountain biking, outdoor climbing, zip line, paintball, horse back riding, ...

3) Tourism: I think this one speaks for it self. There has to be tourism in the area and if there isn't a lot of tourism at the moment there has to be a possibility to increase the tourism. At the moment there is not a lot of tourism in Khulo but there is some and it's growing. Last year the tourism grew with more than 100% which mean that it has doubled. To keep this growth rate and increase it I will do a lot of marketing.

4) Attractions and activities: from the hostel it should be easy to reach the main attractions or the main activities of the region. In khulo the main attraction will be the cable car and the main activities will be mountain biking and hiking which both can be done from the hostel.

5) Locals: think about what impact the hostel will have on the local population. When not taking this in consideration you could find yourself in the situation that locals do not support the project and try to block it. Some reasons for doing this are: stealing business from them, disturbing the peace, giving them the feeling you are invading the place as a foreigner, .... So you should check if the locals are open for a project like this and you should think about how this project can have a positive effect on the local economic. In Khulo I've already received a lot of support from the local community. Most people though that I've talked with are the more educated population of the area. So I am planning before the project starts to be build to do a meeting with all the local villagers to get them engaged with the project. This way they will be prepared and can also give their opinion about the project.

6) Passion: when starting a hostel your first motivation should be passion. Please don't start a hostel somewhere purely because you think there is money in it. Starting/building a good hostel is a challenge and there will be moments where you will have to face difficulties. When you are not passionate with the place and the idea you will not have the motivation to overcome these difficulties. So be sure you are in love with the place and the idea!

Next to these items you should also inform yourself about the regulations in the area.

My story

To explain to you where my passion for this project comes from I'll explain you how I found my magic spot. 6 months ago may 2017 I decided to travel through Georgia for one month. After having traveled for 2 weeks and falling more in love with the country every day I arrived in Batumi. A big city that is becoming the Las Vegas from the black see. The contrast with the rest of the country is just surreal. Not my kind of place to be. So I decided to hitchhike away from the big city into the mountains.

*picture: hitchhiking with the police

This is where the magic started it took me 2 days to get from Batumi to Khulo which is normally a 3h ride. Now you probably think that that's a bad thing but the reason why it took me so long will change your mind. I got invited to so many locals their place that just couldn't advance. I drunk chacha (local wodka) and wine with more that 6 different people, got invited 2 times to sleep and eat with a family and they brought me to the most beautiful places. In short hospitality at it's best.

*picture: drinking chacha with the locals

After this amazing trip I arrived in Khulo. Here I planned to only stay one night but as you can expect I stayed much longer. After taking the Cable car and walking around in the peaceful village of Tago I got invited another time to drink coffee and tea with a local family. Eventually they also invited me to stay at there place for some time. Now at this point I was already totally in love with the place and most of all with the people.

So just out of curiosity I started asking how much a piece of ground would cost me. They told me some very reasonable prices and it turned out that the place the I wanted to buy was from the family that I was staying with! After this I started to do more research and found out the place is full with potential. While doing this research I stayed at another hostel. I was afraid to tell the owner about the idea that I've got. But after meeting her in person I decided to tell her. She has since then been my biggest support! These events just make me feel like the universe is telling me: ''Go for it!".

After all this positive energy and the support of the locals I've decided that this place is my magic spot!

*picture: my magic spot

Feel free to give me your thoughts. You can also always send me a message for more information about the project.
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