Hostelworld.com reports on the record take-up of their online property management system (PMS) for hostels, called Backpack Online.

Backpack online is an innovative new system that uses ajax technology to enable hostels to manage their entire business online. Hostels using Backpack Online benefit from an “always on” allocation enabling them to sell the maximum amount of beds online as well as managing the everyday running of the business. The application includes a free booking engine for a hostels own website and the ability to distribute web allocations through Hostelworld.com and more than 2000 other Hostelworld.com distribution partners including Ryanair.com, Lonelyplanet.com, Tripadvisor.com, and many more.

The online access gives hostel managers greater accessibility, data security, scalability and the freedom to manage their businesses remotely either through the web or through a mobile phone interface. Backpack online is based on the established windows based hostel management system which was developed by Hostelworld.com in 1999 and has been the system of choice for hostels in Europe, South America, the US, Australia and New Zealand for more than 8 years.

The system has been used in a test environment by a number of hostels since February 2006 and a final version was unveiled at the recent Hostelworld.com Conference in Dublin on January 29th, 2007. Since then, interest in the software has been phenomenal with hundreds of hostels from the 12,000 properties currently working with Hostelworld.com expressing interest in the system.

Backpack Online Product Manager, Amy Grange explains the interest from hostel owners, “Hostels differ from hotels in that they are often small businesses mostly run by owner/managers. Typically hostels don’t want to invest in technology, but they want the benefits it can offer in terms of yield and inventory management and reporting. With Backpack Online they can have the best of both worlds, a free system that offers them a leading-edge solution and the control to run their business from anywhere.”

Backpack Online is currently being used by more than 150 hostels with 300 more signed up for trial versions. It is the latest in a series of technological advances from Hostelworld.com, market leaders in online hostel bookings worldwide.
(For more information visit www.backpacksoftware.com or www.hostelworld.com)

——-