Quality for the future

 

A quarter of all Slovenian Youth Hostels attended the trainings and started implementing the quality system at their venue.

 

The HI-Q light is meant for smaller and mid-sized hostels, answering the challenges that turn up daily when running a hostel. It’s a control system to manage the working processes and task in a way that excludes potential errors prior to their occurrence, and if by chance an error does happen, there are clear and appropriate ways provided on how to solve them. The HI-Q light thus made easier and optimised certain processes of the hostel resulting in the best service with maximized satisfaction of the guests and staff.

 

The first Slovenian hostel receiving the HI-Q light certificate is the Youth centre Krško, with its 24 beds and a good price for quality boarding capabilities in the centre of Krško. I’ve (Igor Jurišič) conducted an interview with Katarina Ceglar, the CEO of Youth Hostel Mladinski center Krško, and here’s what she said for the Globetrotter:

Krško has a good city hotel, which quite a long tradition, but is more suitable for demanding guests. Since we’ve conducted programs on national and even international level at the MC, we needed capabilities for them, as events lasted for a few days. Most of all we needed sleeping arrangements for young people. Other organizations in the municipality had similar needs, for they also held events that lasted for a few days (the football club, the swimming club…). Hence we decided to try and raise the funds to build a small youth hotel and with the support of the municipality we’ve succeeded.

The number of overnight stays since July 2011, when the hostel opened its doors, increased dramatically. This year alone we’ve had just under 3.000 overnight stays. For a town the size of Krško this is a great result. This goes to show that the youth tourism is developing and that tourism is becoming interesting for youth even in less known tourist destinations. The countries from which visitors come are also very colourful. Still we estimate there are many options for networking among tourist service providers in Krško and Posavje in general, to prepare new tourist offers for future potential guests.

YH always supported youth activities and thus it surely supports the youth scene in general. Travelling, exploring new parts of the globe, meeting new cultures, weaving new bonds of friendships… these are the things that give young people precious knowledge and experience. Young people can get opportunities not just to actively spend their free time, but also for their employment, by becoming more mobile. And the YH stands for a complete tourist package, as it doesn’t only offer you a bed, but also a place to get to mingle and meet people, a creative environment for young and the one stop shop for tickets to tourist attractions.

The staff of the Mladinski center Krško, to which the hostel belongs to, is oriented in finding sollutions. For us a challenge does not mean a problem – a challenge is something we’ll overcome and prove again the willingness to learn is the key to success. Team work, at the time of the opening of the hostel, was of vital importance, since we had to do everything from scratch. When I say everything, I mean things like working permits, installing software at the reception, running the e-guest program, meeting with legislative requirements (about water, rooms,…), physically preparing the reception room, tending to guests, writing offers, marketing, networking with other stakeholders in the field of youth tourism,… And since all of the staff had zero experience in the field of tourist workers, we started at square one! Despite everything, we haven’t ran into any major obstacle, since we put preparation for the work in hostel into our working plan already a year before, so I can say we’ve passed with flying colours.

We’re very satisfied with the IYHF membership. Becoming part of the network we’ve become a part of a huge global family and story. There are great networking opportunities among the members of the IYHF members, good practice transfers of running a hostel, strengthening the sector in Slovenia and a joint promotion on an international level. The direct connection the network has with the youth (through writing blogs, photo competitions…) is very good, for it promotes hostels and develops a positive attitude of young people toward youth tourism. It even helps the youth develop new skills.

We’ve decided to integrate the HI-Q light system in our hostel because it’s exactly what we’ve needed. The main focus being the fact that the guest should not have to see all the troubles the staff has to deal with while running the hostel. The experience the guest must have should be as positive and pleasant as possible. So it’s only right to introduce a system that collects all the data in one place. But since we had quite a few of the things the HI-Q light supposes implemented, the transition was not very difficult. We just started collecting all the data about the hostel in a more systematic way.

The program is very good. It includes all the tasks that are daily on the choir list in a hostel. We’ve naturally used the parts which are relevant for our hostel. The quality system allows you to collect information about undertaken tasks on weekly bases, which means a flow of information between employees has gotten better and it’s easier to them to get involved into joint work.

HI-Q light quality system made our job easier on many levels, for now we have a much better overview of the functioning of the hostel. Accordingly we can show you a whole list of things that have been improved in the hostel, but let me just give you a few examples that stand out most. Such an example is the level of information flow between the people at the reception desk and the cleaning and maintenance crew. Since the instructions are easy to follow each employee sees clearly which light bulb has to be changed, which key got lost, which guests are still in the room… this means the regular work at the hostel runs much smoother and the guests are much more satisfied with our services. But let’s not forget that integrating the system and keeping the quality level high is important for strengthening the entire network, since it’s becoming a synonym for quality tourist services.