Hostelworld.com Announces Top Hostels Worldwide

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. October 14, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland, February 1, 2006. - The suspense has built toward that highly anticipated annual event known around the globe for celebrating excellence among the world's biggest stars with fanfare and golden statuettes. No, not the Oscars: the Hoscars!

Monday night in Dublin, Hostelworld.com, the leading provider of online lodging reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market, shone the spotlight on a global audience of hostel owners and other industry luminaries during its annual Hoscars award ceremony.

The winner of the award for "Best Hostel of 2007" is Jetpak City Hostel in Berlin, Germany.

When the delighted owner of Jetpack City Hostel, Neil Nadarajah, heard his hostel called out, he said, "I couldn't believe it. We expected nothing really. We were waiting for Naples to win everything!"

Neil added that a contributing factor to the hostel's popularity was their ability to cater to customers' needs. "We cater modern-day travelers that travel with their computers, and if they don't have computers they always have iPods, or a digital camera, and we service everything they travel with."

More than 500,000 hostel users voted in this year's competition, selecting winning hostels from the more than 12,000 worldwide properties featured on Hostelworld.com. The travelers, who booked their hostel stays online, were surveyed after their stays and asked to grade their hostel based on six different criteria: character, security, location, staff, fun and cleanliness.

The coveted Hoscar awards were announced during Hostelworld.com's third annual Hostel Conference, which took place in the Hilton Hotel, Dublin, and featured speakers on a variety of topics relevant to the hostel industry including travel 2.0 as it relates to the hotel industry, environmental issues, social trends in youth tourism, marketing to today's tech-savvy targets and managing content on the internet.

The awards were presented at a ceremony in the Village in Dublin's storied Temple Bar and were attended by more than 350 hostel owners and managers from around the world.

And the winners are...

Hostelworld.com's Top Ten Hostels in the World:

1. Jetpak City Hostel, Berlin, Germany

2. Hostel of the Sun, Naples, Italy

3. La Chimba, Santiago, Chile

4. Mamas Hostel, Krakow, Poland

5. Wombats City Hostel (The Lounge), Vienna, Austria

6. Friendly Fun Franks Backpackers Hostel, Riga, Latvia

7. EastSeven Berlin Hostel, Berlin, Germany

8. Argonaut Backpackers, Riga, Latvia

9. Oasis Backpackers Hostel, Granada, Spain

10. Oki Doki Hostel, Warsaw, Poland

The Hoscars also recognize several other categories important to travelers. These winners included:

o Cleanest Hostel - Jetpak City Hostel, Berlin, Germany

o Best Staff - Jetpak City Hostel, Berlin, Germany

o Most Secure Hostel - Albergue Miraflores House, Lima, Peru

o Best Location - Flamingo Hostel, Krakow, Poland

o Best Character - Oasis Backpackers Mansion Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

o Most Fun - Mostel Hostel, Sofia, Bulgaria

o Best Large Hostel (min 500 beds) - HI Chicago, Chicago, USA

o Best Small Hostel (max 50 beds) - Mostel Hostel, Sofia, Bulgaria

All winning hostels received the prestigious 'Hoscar,' a gold-plated statuette of a seasoned backpacker. For additional information and user comments on the hostels mentioned above and a list of winning hostels based on geography, please visit www.hostelworld.com. Graphics of hostels are available upon request.