behind the counter x Daniel and Sebastian
There’s a very fine line between being overly optimistic and overconfident and being assertive and assured. Interviewing Daniel and Sebastian, definitely tells me they are the latter! They had the vision to start a hostel in a foreign land and guess what? They did, and it's a big success! They have both studied Architecture & Design and are clearly best mates and also the proud owners of Columbus Hostel, the largest hostel in a picturesque Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Island.
How did the two of you decide to start a hostel?
Growing up in England, the only hostel we knew of was the Youth Hostel Association, we had a very different perspective of what a hostel is like, we always thought it was for older people and families. So funnily enough, when we went backpacking for the first time through Thailand, we didn’t actually stay in any hostels! We had the lonely planet guide and stayed at the cheapest recommended guesthouses. But then, two years later after we finished our studies, we flew out to Gran Canaria to travel for a little bit, and that's when we stayed in our first hostel ever. And we absolutely enjoyed it! Every bit of it! We wondered why we never stayed in a hostel while travelling through Thailand! Meeting so many like-minded travelers and the feeling of community was what changed our perception about hostels and inspired us to start our own hostel.
What would be the unique essence of Columbus hostel? How would you describe it?
Sebastian: Well, our whole concept behind it, is the idea of someone waking up on the Island and just kind of having like a really perfect day!
So waking up to a nice breakfast with everybody, preferably with a lot of sunshine. And as a part of this perfect day, you come to a different place and then meet a group of people, you go out with that group of people, you explore the island, you hike, you see some of the bits of nature, the Island has to offer. And then when you come back, you come to eat together and we have huge social spaces, so they spend the day together sharing experiences as a community.
Daniel: We pretty much built everything ourselves, even the beds and the lockers the guests use, are handmade. We also designed all the spaces in this then-used-to-be vacant building. We had a limited budget and we pretty much taught ourselves how to install a kitchen and bathrooms from scratch. As we got more guests to justify the concept, we observed their behaviour and what they would do in each of the areas in the hostel, and we kept renovating and improving accordingly.
What kind of hurdles did you face at the start of your hostel journey?
One of the biggest challenges, after we decided to start a hostel in the Gran Canaria, is that we were not from here. We arrived knowing zero Spanish, we were young in our early twenties, not to mention foreigners here and had no previous hospitality experience. We still had our jobs in the U.K, so we kept travelling to and fro to keep searching for as many properties at one go and went back to the U.K and continued working to save a little bit more of finances. We went on like that for seven months, checked out a minimum of 60–70 properties. People who were renting didn’t want to rent it out as a hostel, not many people took us seriously they just looked at us as two young kids wanting to rent a huge building to start a hostel with no previous experience!
However, when we signed the contract, we somehow managed to negotiate a three-month-free rent deal on the property that we moved into. And then we spent pretty much all of our money on the property fixing it up and we ended up making enough to pay for the next three months. The gamble paid off luckily!
What’s your favorite part of owning and running a successful hostel business?
Daniel: On a personal note, the flexibility and possibility of being able to take time off without asking for permission. The ability to truly have a good balance between work, friends, and family is quite important to me.
On a professional note, I like that we were able to take a concept and transition it into reality, bringing it to life. For example, the initial drawing and the layout, sourcing the materials, then designing and building it, and finally seeing our guests use all of the things and spaces is extremely fulfilling.
Sebastian: When you own a hostel, you meet a lot of people (a lot), directly and indirectly; whether its team members or guests at the hostel, and it’s quite amazing! I’ve been able to connect with so many like-minded people, whom I would have never had the chance to meet otherwise. Some of the best people and very close friends that I have met in my life are through running the hostel. And knowing that they picked ‘your’ hostel, which is a reflection of you, you end up sharing many things in common. Also, the other thing I like is that every day can be so varied, somedays you can be happily busy and other days you have the much needed time for yourself.
What are the challenges of managing a hostel on a daily basis?
Due to the nature of the hospitality industry, and also the location of the hostel, business is very seasonal, however, not seasonal enough to close down during the off-season! Even though we get enough guests to stay open, it’s not less enough to close. It's like a middle-land where it's very difficult for us to hire and retain a strong permanent team consistently. Sometimes, even before our staff gets really comfortable in their role, they no longer can stay with us, either work permit issues or they are in transit themselves.
Also, rent being high, during the off-season we cannot afford to have a full-fledged team. We need to source a lot of people every year, who are all varied in their experiences and standards. Unfortunately, in a way we are very limited in terms of an in-depth interview with the applicants; and realistically there’s only so much time we could invest in an applicant for a 6-week position. This is a constant challenge. We have also reached out to many other hostel owners in Gran Canaria to see how they operate and a lot of them are in a very similar situation and face the same challenge.
We are actually expanding out sideways and introducing apartments (which tend to be more stable for business considering long term lease) which mean increasing our overall number of beds and potential guests, which would then mean we can have a bigger and more permanent team since we are going to have a lot of work to do. However this way, the hostel becomes a smaller percentage of the overall business than what it is now.
Most hostels worldwide are relying on domestic travel, considering the pandemic breakout, how has the business been impacted in Gran Canaria?
We do get tourism from other Islands, but it is a very small percentage of our visitors. Locals of the Gran Canaria Island and nearby Islands don’t really consider hostels as an option for accommodation, as they probably have friends and family to stay with. “Hostal” in Spanish is widely considered as a budget hotel, therefore their idea of a hostel is not very appealing.
However, regarding the pandemic, if a pandemic could ever come at the right time, it did for us! When it broke out in March, it was 3 weeks before our high-season ended. Except for March, every month since then we have had more guests than recorded ever before in the previous years (of course all safety measures were followed). We closed the hostel and issued all existing guests with a long term tenant contract (at least a month) and accommodated all staff members for free during which we did not accept any other guests. Things got busier the following months after because a lot of guests from the smaller hostels that shut down due to the pandemic didn’t have anywhere to go and ended up coming and staying with us. We were even able to take in volunteers from other hostels that lost their jobs. Since we have been through much more difficult times in the past, we believe we were a bit more weathered in order to deal with the pandemic and take a step back and think with clear minds.
Also since we diversified into apartments, we had a huge project to constantly work on and focus a lot of our time and the volunteer’s time on it too. It kept us busy and going, we worked six days a week and it felt very productive and we were able to open the doors of our apartments well before it was scheduled. As a team, it gave us a real sense of achievement!
What was your biggest learning experience throughout the years?
Sebastian: Its a game, you got to keep playing it and enjoying it. Research is good of course before you start, but knowing too much before getting on the field can make you skeptical about a lot of things and you end up having very different expectations of what it’s really like. You have to just start, even if progress is slow, just start. nothing replaces how quick and easy it is to learn through experience.
Daniel: When we started we knew very little and we were naive but that helped us. If we knew too much and did a lot of research we would probably never have started. In any business, it is so easy to sit on the fence and wait for the perfect opportunity. When you operate out of fear you can never push forward and materialize the things you want. You have to go all-in, You will end up learning a few things by making mistakes, but that's all right, no business is risk-free after all and everything you do ends up being relevant somehow. And the things you don’t know will eventually turn to work out themselves.
