Hostelworld.com Milestones

1999

Hostelworld.com was founded by IT Entrepreneur Ray Nolan and hostel owner Tom Kennedy who identified a gap in the market for booking hostels online. Backpack (DOS version) was also launched allowing hostel owners to sell beds online through their property management system.

2000

Backpack for windows launched, making the already successful DOS system more user friendly.

Hostelworld.com introduces multi-lingual sites in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Chinese

2001

Affiliate Program established. Content is available to partner sites via white label, co-branded or xml solutions. To date WRI has successful relationships with over 3,500 partners, including many of the world’s leading brands such as Ryanair.com, WAYN.com, Travelsupermarket.com and Lonelyplanet.com.

Tours program was established on Hostelworld.com, facilitating the needs of backpackers on their travels. Customers could now book all sorts of tours directly on Hostelworld.com, both those available through hostels and from 3rd party operators from adventure to sightseeing.

2002

Hostelworld.com receives Best eCommerce and overall ESAT BT award at the Golden Spiders Internet awards in Dublin, Ireland

2003

Hostelworld.com founders receive Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the year award.

Affiliate partnership deal signed with Ryanair.com, one of Europe’s leading budget airlines.

2004

Hostelworld.com reach first major booking milestone reaching 1 million bookings.

1,000 tours active and available on Hostelworld.com

2005

Hostelworld.com sign partnership deals to provide a white label solution for both Airasia.com and Tripadvisor.com.

2006

Backpack Online developed. Based on Hostelworld.com’s windows based hostel management system the online access allows hostels the freedom to manage their businesses remotely either through the web or through a mobile phone interface.

Hostelworld.com add 12 new language platforms to its customer booking capabilities bringing the number of languages the site is available in to 15. New languages include Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean

Hostelworld.com launch their own travel social network ‘MyWorld’ - making them the first hostel booking website to launch a social networking platform Hostelworld.com reach 5 million bookings milestone.

2007

5 new languages get added to Hostelworld.com, bringing the total number of languages available on the site to 23. Newest languages include Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovenian and Slovakian

2,000 tours now available on Hostelworld.com

Mobile.hostelworld.com launched, bringing Hostelworld.com into the mobile space

2008

Ray Nolan steps down as CEO of Hostelworld.com and parent company WRI with former COO Feargal Mooney taking over the helm.

Hostelworld.com launch an iPhone specific version of its site so users can experience a website designed for optimal use on the device.

Available tours on Hostelworld.com reach 3,000

2009

Hostelworld.com wins its first ever Webby Award, picking up the People’s Choice award in the “Best Travel & Adventure Video” category

Travel Services launched allowing customers to purchase travel insurance, travel SIM cards, travel guides and more on Hostelworld.com

4,000 tours now active and available on Hostelworld.com

2010

Hostelworld.com launch free iPhone app

New look Hostelworld.com launched.