Hostels Editing and Proofreading Services

A hostel sells a bed in a room with strangers, and the whole business depends on the guests in that room having compatible expectations. One person booked cheap accommodation and expects quiet; another booked a social experience and comes back at three. Neither is wrong, and the hostel that does not say which it is gets both, along with the review from whichever one was disappointed. The listing is where that is decided.

We edit what hostels, backpacker accommodation and shared-stay operators produce — property and dormitory descriptions, room type and bed configuration information, shared facility descriptions, atmosphere and guest profile descriptions, house rules and quiet hours, security, lockers and valuables information, age policy and group booking terms, check-in, curfew and key arrangements, breakfast and self-catering kitchen information, social programme and event material, accessibility descriptions, cleaning and turnover information, booking and cancellation terms, and review response wording. Our editors work on the description that sorts guests correctly.

Describing shared accommodation honestly is the discipline, and hostels avoid it because it sounds unattractive written down. A dormitory description saying eight beds, four bunks, one bathroom shared with the room next door, lockers that take a padlock you supply, and lights out is not a policy sounds worse than "vibrant social atmosphere in our modern dorms" — and it books the right people. We write these so the bed count, bunk configuration and who shares the bathroom are stated plainly; so the character of the property is described as it actually is, since a hostel with a bar until two and one that fills with hikers at nine are different products and both have a market; so anything that reliably causes friction is addressed as a norm rather than a rule — that people arrive late, that packing at six is part of it, that earplugs help and are on reception; so security arrangements are specific, because a solo traveller is assessing that before anything else; and so the age or group policy is stated, since a stag party in a mixed dorm is the single most common source of the reviews that damage a hostel.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including listings, guest information and operational material. We are editors rather than hospitality, safety or licensing advisers, and we offer no view on fire safety, licensing or any operational requirement. What we can do is make the description honest enough that the right guests book the right room.