I volunteer in a youth hostel in Dali, and this is what I saw.

In June+10 this year, I took advantage of my resignation to run to a youth hostel in Dali and volunteered for one month.

Volunteer, which means working for accommodation, helps with some work at the front desk of the youth travel service, and the youth travel service provides free accommodation. As a traveler who often stays in youth hostels and has stayed in more than 40 youth hostels a year, this is the first time for me to look at youth hostels from the perspective of semi-operators and long-term residents. I wrote an article about youth travel before, which is my feelings about youth travel culture and management mode after I became a volunteer.

When I was a volunteer for a month, I stood at the front desk for the first time to watch the youth travel. I gradually get to know everyone I live in and sometimes chat with them. When the weather is fine, I organize an activity, take everyone out to play, barbecue around the stove at night, or play werewolf killing together. During the break, you can visit the ancient city, find a cafe to rest for an afternoon, fly drones on the rooftop or go to the seaside.

Dali is a pleasant place. No one is in a hurry. You can be in a daze in the ancient city during the day, and the scenery can be seen everywhere by the Erhai Lake. Dali at night is lively and noisy. The streets are full of songs by singers in bars. The shop is surrounded by barbecue and mahjong players, from night arrival to three or four in the morning. Dali hasn't woken up in the morning, and everything is quiet. I didn't wake up until noon It's easy to come here to play with everyone, or find a place to kill time alone. This is the life of Dali Youth Travel Service.

In the impression of many people, youth hostels may be a large group of men and women who are full of literary cells but have no money, gathering in a messy bed room, smoking, drinking and bragging to force men and women to have sex by the way. In fact, youth travel is not so sacred, but has a slightly different foothold from ordinary inns. For many people who like the youth travel environment, CYTS will be the first choice when traveling.

When you walk into the streets, push open the dilapidated doors and come to the lobby of the Youth Travel Service, you will see a lobby similar to a literary cafe, bar or art decoration style, surrounded by travel photos, travel tracks, books and plants. There are two or three tourists sitting and chatting, and cats and dogs come to your feet. You will find that this is different from the same hotel.

The bed room of youth travel is very cheap, characterized by self-help, no free toiletries, and sheets and quilts need to be covered by themselves. Every bed can guarantee comfort and privacy. In the evening, I came to the lobby to chat and play games with everyone. By the way, I made an appointment with friends who had the same trip the next day. You may have an intersection with someone you won't have any intersection with. You may overturn your previously planned trip here and start over. You may go to a place that is not in the guidebook, or you may play a game that you haven't played before. This is the Youth Travel Service.

Some people think that people with insufficient money live in youth hostels, which is an illusion. First of all, most youth hostels have standard rooms with big beds, which can fully meet their own needs of sleeping in one room. Most people who live in the youth team are young people. From post-80s to post-00s, 95% of them are 1-2. There will be no married children, no children, and a group of people will have a meeting to build a group, which is very suitable for young people to play together. Most people live in youth travel not for the price, but for the atmosphere and style of youth travel.

You can see three kinds of people in youth hostels: tourists, long-term guests and volunteers. As a volunteer this time, I finally experienced all three roles.

Volunteers are jobs that don't cost money. This kind of free labor sounds like no one wants to do it, but volunteers are very common in youth hostels. The person you see sitting at the front desk checking you in and taking everyone out to play, you call him the boss, but most of them are volunteers. There are four front desk employees in our store, one is the manager in charge and the other three are volunteers.

Youth travel volunteers have two jobs. One is to assist the front desk, manage orders, receive guests and do daily business such as check-in/check-out. The other is to organize activities and lead guests out to play as team leaders. Volunteer work is generally idle. For example, 3-4 of us work in three shifts for five or six hours a day, and the rest can be arranged by ourselves. Most youth teams that recruit volunteers will be required to work for at least one month.

The work content is really simple, but after a month, you can also see what kind of people come to live, how much money you earn a day, how to deal with the various requirements of guests, some rules on Ctrip's Meituan platform, user evaluation, etc., and come into contact with something that the youth travel service can't see. A month's accommodation can also save a lot of money.

There are three kinds of people who come to volunteer for youth travel. One kind is college students, who come out during holidays to save money for travel or as social practice. One is to quit my job and travel like me, as a stop on the way, as a volunteer to experience life, go to all the interesting places in the local area, and then go to the next stop a month later. The third type is people who live in youth brigades for a long time and volunteer while living for a long time.

Volunteers have become a common group in this industry. After all, the people who work in the youth brigade include the boss who runs the youth brigade, and few people come for the work itself. It is true that there is no salary, but people who come to volunteer are only interested in the atmosphere of local tourism or youth travel. No one will miss the salary of two or three thousand yuan this month. Volunteer is a job based on reputation and trust. There is no substantive constraint between volunteers and youth travel bosses. One side is wonderful, and the other side has a headache.

Since they are free volunteers, the natural water is deep, and some youth hostels lack cleaning staff, they will use this free labor force to let volunteers do cleaning. Obviously, no one wants to do cleaning work. If you want to be a volunteer, you'd better check the online evaluation of this store before choosing a youth tour, and look at the photos, work content, accommodation and other exchanges, preferably if you have lived before. I lived in another store in Dali before coming to this youth tour, so I have a certain understanding.

When you come to the Youth Travel Service in Dali, you will find that some people live in the Youth Travel Service for several months, ranging from one month to six months, and some people come to live for a long time repeatedly. The first reaction of people who have never lived in a youth hostel to long-term guests is who are these people and don't have to work? Why don't you live in a youth hostel instead of your own home?

The long-term guests I have met can be divided into two categories. The first category is common in big cities such as Beishangguang, and I went to look for a job. When I was looking for a job myself, I also lived in youth travel at first. The second analogy is that people who have lived in Dali, Lhasa, Lijiang and other cities for a long time, some live in youth brigades, and some rent houses, that is, they have free time to live here for a few months to a year, find a job or kill time. These cities have good scenery and slow pace of life, and many people come here to live. I didn't know there would be many permanent residents here before I came. I saw a lot during my trip to Dali and in Lhasa last month.

Of course, these people don't have to go to work, and some will not want to find the next job for a while after resigning; Some of them run their own businesses and come here for a period of time when they are free, or just spend a little time dealing with their own affairs every day, and they can also play at other times; There are also students on vacation, international students who can't go out this year, singers in bars and so on. They may have saved enough money to spend a few months a year, or they may be able to make money here themselves. The biggest difference between them and tourists is that for them, there is no such thing as going back. Living in Dali is equivalent to living here now. Time can be long or short, you don't need to consider where to go next, live in the present.

Long-term residents have their own habits. Some people drink and play games until three or four o'clock in the evening, sleep during the day, some people visit every corner of the city, and some people don't go out much, living, cooking and playing games like at home. Living in a youth hostel can be played by a group of people, and watching different people experience different things every day is much more interesting than staying at home alone. Long-term beds are very cheap, and they only come to 750 yuan in a month. Their demand for atmosphere is far greater than their demand for personal space, so it is nothing for them to live in a bed room all the time.

People who have lived in youth travel for a long time will feel satisfied with this life, and people who don't know will not understand that they don't live at home and live in a bed room. Everyone has their own different way of life. Whether you and I understand it or not, long-term residents naturally have their reasons.

For a youth tour, the number of long-term guests is definitely far less than that of tourists. On the contrary, long-term guests will also determine the quality of youth travel. Some youth tours have a good atmosphere. Long-term guests may not go out to play, but they will also help to stimulate the atmosphere, such as barbecue at night and board games like werewolf killing. However, some youth brigades are long-term guests at first sight, and the atmosphere is general or long-term guests play by themselves. After the tourists check in, they can't find anyone to travel with, so the experience will naturally not be good.

Compared with B&B hotels and even small inns, a bed of CYTS does not exceed that of 50 yuan, and the unit price of guests is extremely low, which seems to make little money. Some people say that youth travel is for feelings, and the bosses of youth travel are all people with stories, but feelings can't be eaten. Guests choose youth travel to see whether it is good or not, not whether the boss is handsome or not.

The traffic of a youth brigade depends on the traffic, evaluation and reputation of the platform. Ctrip Meituan platform operates well, with large exposure and high natural traffic. Many people will refer to the evaluation. Most people with a score above 4.8 feel good, and few people with a score below 4 are willing to book. Word of mouth is a very important factor in youth travel. When you live in a youth hostel and want to go to the next stop, many people will ask others which youth hostel to recommend.

There will be no business cooperation such as hotels, and the price is similar, so evaluation and word of mouth are particularly important. Youth travel is a niche in the tourism circle. If you want to make money, you definitely need more people to make reservations. Only the youth brigades with high evaluation can rank in the top of each platform and get more new customers. Only when there are more new customers can we make money.

There are three common bad reviews I have seen: poor accommodation, too much noise at night, and bad attitude at the front desk (of course, my attitude is good).

Some youth travel bosses think that beds are already so cheap that they need good accommodation environment and facilities. Do they need to be clean, tidy and comfortable? I don't know what the boss thinks, I can only think that I will definitely not stay in the youth tour opened by the boss.

Most people's travel needs, accommodation environment is the first, even youth travel, it is impossible to directly exclude people who need accommodation environment because they are not non-target users.

A good accommodation environment, first of all, the room is clean and tidy. It is not easy to keep the bedroom clean and tidy. When there are many people, everyone's things are easy to get messy. If a guest checks in and sees eight beds crowded in a small room full of other people's things, the wooden bed will shake and no one will feel well.

I have seen many youth teams do well. For example, all the beds in our store have their own bathrooms, each room has a hall, and some have balconies. At least there's a place to put things in order. The bed itself is also very strong, with curtains, and the bunk beds will not be affected. Guests also have requirements for beds, such as four people without important people instead of eight people, and the lower berth instead of the upper berth. It is reasonable to ask for more people.

Second, the infrastructure is complete, such as hot water, the room is not too cold, there is no water leakage in rainy days, no power failure and so on. It seems trivial, but after catching mice at night, climbing onto the roof in rainy days and tripping the hot water circuit, I realized that it is not easy to do all this, especially in some small cities or old houses in scenic spots.

The so-called youth travel atmosphere means that operators need to get everyone together in various ways to help them complete the first step from not knowing to knowing. It can be a lively outdoor activity, a barbecue, a simple movie, a meal and so on. Each youth brigade has different characteristics, some are noisy and some are quiet, but they can all create an atmosphere by their own means. If the Youth Hostel looks like a commercial hotel without popularity and atmosphere, there are only beds left, just like a cheap small hotel.

Youth travel atmosphere depends on operation. I have seen several effective means. The first is to pull the group. I have lived in few youth brigades, and there are three in my mind. Now this, one in Xi 'an and one in Changbai Mountain, ranks among the top three in Dali ancient city, the top three in Xi 'an and the first in Changbai Mountain, and the evaluation has always been 5.0 points. Groups allow everyone to play freely in groups, publish activity announcements and inform guests of various matters.

Secondly, there are meals, games and movies at night. These are relatively simple daily necessities, which can bring people together and facilitate residents' participation. I played several werewolf killings this month, all of which were high-end games. Although the threshold for werewolf killing is very high, I have met several people who came here to live specifically for werewolf killing.

The third is to organize activities, which can be outdoor mountain climbing activities around the lake for a whole day, or going out for dinner and shopping, as well as minority projects that tourists don't know, such as local markets. It is meaningful to take everyone to play as a team leader. Compared with letting guests play by themselves, it can save them a lot of worry, and they don't need to do raiders and transportation, so that everyone can get familiar with it quickly. I haven't been to some places before, and I brought others to myself.

It is the most common bad review I have ever seen that the noise of green hotel affects sleep. This is a difficult problem for young people to travel, especially in cities such as Lhasa and Dali. It is common to drink and chat until three or four in the morning, and it is unrealistic to ban this kind of behavior. However, many people fell asleep at 1 1, and their sleep was affected, so they could not sit idly by. Sometimes the atmosphere is good, but to others, the environment is too noisy.

As a person who stayed in a youth hostel a few years ago and often stayed up until midnight, he can feel this contradiction and feeling after going out for two years. Two or three months ago, I was worried about the quality of sleep. I was woken up repeatedly in my bedroom in the middle of the night a few days before I first came here, but I gradually got used to it in the next few days. I put on earplugs, found a room with few people, and sometimes even fell asleep peacefully listening to the sound of playing mahjong at the door.

If the youth travel is too noisy, first of all, we must meet the normal sleep schedule of most people. The best way I have ever seen is to separate the public area and the accommodation area of the hall as far as possible, and ensure that people who sleep late chat in the closed hall, not in the empty yard, and try not to influence each other. The bedroom can also be equipped with earplugs. Activities organized in the name of Youth Travel Service should not exceed 12 pm. Those who are still chatting in the lobby after 12 pm, please keep your voice down. I have also seen a youth hostel,/kloc-after 0/2 o'clock, guests are forbidden to drink, and someone will lift the table when drinking.

Finally, I would like to recommend my youth hostel. The ancient city of Dali is called Warm Youth Hostel, and there are shops in Shuanglang, which is very suitable for people who want to live in the ancient city of Dali.

The youth travel introduction written before? I have lived in more than 40 youth brigades this year, which is my knowledge (probably the most detailed introduction of youth brigades)