The first Croatia Hostel Conference (CHC) will be held on March 20, 2020 at the Zagreb Technical Museum, organized by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce Hostels Association and the Swanky Travel Agency.
The conference is conceptually divided into two parts – an exhibition part where B2B meetings will be held as well as an educational and informational section consisting of panels and presentations. Participants will thus have the opportunity to listen to representatives of the best hostel in the world, Russia’s SoulKitchen from St. Petersburg and the best hostels in the region; Vagabond from Sarajevo, Hedonist from Belgrade and Celica from Ljubljana and Zagreb’s largest hostel Chillout.
“Our aim is to bring together local hostels and connect them with the most important international customers, suppliers and agencies at the conference. Of course, we also expect a lot of visitors who are yet planning to open hostels and who want to get educated and become a part of our network” said Hostel Association President Zoran Salopek, adding that the Association can help its members to negotiate better terms with big players.
Ante Grancarić from Swanky Travel Agency addressed the main topics to be discussed. “We will hear from HostelWorld representatives how the hostel market is developing overseas, and we will also discuss the state of local and regional hostel industry with an emphasis on the lack of manpower, and there will be talk about additional amenities that guests are increasingly looking for,” explained Grancarić. In addition to the best local and international hostels, participants will also be able to hear about funding opportunities and incentives.
The hostel business is growing steadily, still mostly for the purposes of young people, but the guest structure is expanding to almost all segments – from couples and families with children to guests with higher paying power. This leads to a higher demand for private rooms with private bathrooms, while the number of beds in dormitories generally decreases. Increasingly, guests are choosing pet and eco friendly hostels, and so a humanitarian action will be organized as part of the conference to clean up one beach on the Adriatic in collaboration with the diving club Geronimo. Also, CHC is pet friendly conferences, so all pets are welcome.
