Why are Moroccan HI hostels not listed on hostel sites?
I stay almost exclusively in hostels when available and use sites such as hostelworld.com or hostelbookers.com to find hostels.
When looking for a hostel in Casablanca no hostels could be found on these sites, but an Hostelling International (HI) associated hostel does exist and can be booked through the HI site.
HI hostels in the US, UK, Germany and many other countries are listed on the hostel booking sites, why not the Moroccans?
More important is the question whether there are other countries that don't have their HI hostels listed? This would mean I always have to check the official HI site as well.
A list of such countries would be nice, does one exist?
Best Answer
Unlike it's commonly thought, Hosteling International is not a single organisation but rather a group of national associations affiliated to the main body under the same brand name. As such because each national association is a separate organisational entity, and that means how well their inventory of beds is integrated into third-party websites such as HostelWorld depends, quite probably, on the IT setup of the HI chapter in that country.
Unfortunately, I've never been able to find a list of countries where they are integrated or not. (And usually I stay in non HI hostels anyway because they're cheaper.) What you could possibly do is try a Google site-restricted search on hostelworld.com for "Hosteling International" properties for a particular city. Although by that point you might as well check HI's website directly itself.
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Answer 2
As a representative of Hostelz.com, which aggregates information on hostels worldwide, I ran some data queries on our data to check that for you.
This is a list of all countries with Hostelling International hostels, followed by the percent of Hostelling International hostels which are listed in either Hostelworld or Hostelbookers:
Andorra (0%), Argentina (90%), Armenia (100%), Australia (81%), Austria (68%), Belgium (85%), Bolivia (73%), Bosnia & Herzegovina (75%), Brazil (66%), Bulgaria (67%), Cambodia (100%), Canada (82%), Chile (80%), China (74%), Colombia (88%), Costa Rica (50%), Croatia (100%), Cuba (0%), Cyprus (100%), Czech Republic (86%), Denmark (8%), Egypt (0%), England & Wales (50%), Estonia (100%), Fiji (0%), Finland (47%), France (3%), Georgia (100%), Germany (23%), Greece (50%), Hong Kong (100%), Hungary (69%), Iceland (41%), India (50%), Ireland (Republic of) (100%), Israel (71%), Italy (72%), Japan (52%), Lebanon (0%), Libya (0%), Liechtenstein (100%), Lithuania (100%), Luxembourg (100%), Macedonia (0%), Malaysia (55%), Malta (50%), Mexico (91%), Montenegro (100%), Morocco (25%), Namibia (0%), Nepal (0%), Netherlands (100%), New Zealand (86%), Northern Ireland (100%), Norway (32%), Pakistan (0%), Paraguay (100%), Peru (50%), Philippines (25%), Poland (69%), Portugal (79%), Russia (82%), Saudi Arabia (0%), Scotland (81%), Serbia (77%), Singapore (0%), Slovenia (78%), South Africa (85%), South Korea (63%), Spain (47%), Sweden (23%), Switzerland (81%), Taiwan (40%), Thailand (72%), Tunisia (50%), Turkey (50%), Ukraine (100%), United Arab Emirates (0%), Uruguay (75%), USA (81%), Vietnam (100%), Zambia (100%)
Worldwide, 62% of Hostelling International Hostels are listed on either Hostelworld or Hostelbookers.
A couple notes about the data, our Hostelworld and Hostelbookers information is up to date since that gets updated through our partnership with those sites once a month. Our data from Hostelling International is not as up to date and is updated more sporadically.
So it looks like about 25% of Morocco's Hostelling International hostels are listed on either Hostelworld or Hostelbookers. The other countries range all the way from 0% to 100%. As Ankur Banerjee mentioned in his answer, Hostelling International is made up of separate organizations for each country. Some HI organizations put all of their hostels in the booking websites, and some don't work with them at all. Most leave it up to each individual hostel to decide if they want to list themselves.
Another interesting statistic that I just computer for the first time (I don't know why I didn't think to calculate it before), but looking at the stats for all hostels (not just HI ones), worldwide 64% of hostels are listed on Hostelworld, and 39% of hostels are listed on Hostelbookers.
So there are many hostels that don't sign-up for booking websites such as Hostelworld and Hostelbookers. Our website, Hostelz.com tries to include all known hostels, including ones that aren't listed on any of the booking websites. If you are specifically interested in just Hostelling International hostels, HiHostels.com is their official website and will have the most current information on those hostels.
Answer 3
Any hostel listed on Hostelworld or Hostelbooker is listed there because they individually signed up to be listed.
Any hostel can sign up here. In doing so you agree to their Term & Conditions.
While this can bring the hostel more travelers, this also comes as a cost: The 12 % Deposit the travelers pay to secure their booking is actually Hostelworlds commission for listing the Hostel.
So with every booking made via Hostelworld the hostel looses 12% on the accommodation price (compared to walk ins or other direct bookings).
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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