Many aspiring entrepreneurs who decide to explore the fertile field of the hotel business make their choice in favor of a hostel. In order to become a hostelier, no large investments are required, while the hostel remains extremely in demand in the hotel services market, which together makes hostels an ideal springboard for starting your career. If you decide to start your own hostel business, it will be useful for you to know some aspects regarding the location of your future enterprise. What premises are suitable for a hostel, residential or non-residential? Is it possible to open a hostel in non-residential premises? what should non-residential premises for a hostel be like? and other frequently asked questions will be discussed below.
Non-residential premises for a hostel - law on hostels
Hostels appeared in Russia relatively recently. Having come to us from Europe, for a long time they were not at all subject to separate regulations protecting the safety and comfort of both the guests themselves and the unwitting neighbors of apartment hostels in residential buildings. The number of hostels grew uncontrollably. Somewhere they were registered as mini-hotels, and many were forced to work “in the shadows”.
Finally, in 2014, the government reacted and recognized the hostel as an independent type of budget hotel accommodation, releasing a single GOST for hostels. The original law established formal free standards and, in fact, did not solve the problem of hostels in apartment buildings, which set the teeth on edge of ordinary citizens forced to live next to such hostels. In response to their requests, two years later, a package of amendments was developed and implemented, forever closing the conflict between hostel owners and their neighbors.
Requirements for non-residential premises for a hostel
According to the new law, the hostel, as a hostel for temporary stay, can no longer occupy residential premises, which were previously apartments. From now on, to set up a hostel in an apartment, you will first have to remove it from the residential premises and transfer it to non-residential premises, and in order to do this, fulfill a number of mandatory requirements.
Non-residential premises are located, as a rule, on the ground floor of the building. An apartment on the second floor can be transferred to non-residential premises only if the first floor is already occupied by non-residential premises.
An additional requirement in the new amendments is the establishment of a separate entrance to the hostel, not adjacent to the general entrance to the entrance. In fact, these fundamental two points protect the peace of residents of an apartment building and the cleanliness of their staircases from unfamiliar hostel guests.
Also, the new law prohibits placing a hostel in non-residential premises on the ground floors. The fairly cheap cost of renting such spaces attracted hosteliers, while they usually turned a blind eye to sanitary standards for living in the basement floors.
The basement floors are still suitable for temporary occupancy. It is allowed to place showers here, build a gym or a kitchen, but permanent residence of people in the basement is now unacceptable.
How to transfer an apartment to non-residential stock for a hostel
Everything is quite simple here. Initially, the apartment must meet the requirements for non-residential premises and have no technical restrictions for installing a separate entrance (see above). To transfer an apartment to non-residential use, an application on your behalf to the local government authority is sufficient, indicating the planned redevelopment (if required) and, in fact, a request to transfer the area to non-residential use. There is no single standard for such a statement, so it is written in free form. You will be required to attach a document certifying your right to property, or a notarized copy of it.
If you decide to redevelop the premises into a hostel, you will need to obtain a registration certificate for the premises from the technical inventory office at your place of residence, having paid the necessary fees. Also, in the case of redevelopment, permission from the authority for the protection of history and culture is required if the building is considered part of the cultural heritage or an architectural monument.
It wouldn't hurt to coordinate your event with your neighbors. Formally, the law does not oblige you to do this, but regular dissatisfaction from neighbors, collection of signatures and protests can significantly delay the process, and the attitude of local government towards your petition will become picky and meticulous.
If you don’t want to get involved with the bureaucratic machine and get bogged down in complex legal formulations and amendments, collect information and communicate with BTI representatives, you can turn to professional lawyers for help. For a relatively small fee, they will help you with the transfer of your apartment to non-residential use. Along with the advent of hostels, offers of this kind also appeared on the Internet. However, the procedure is not as complicated as it seems, and it is a matter of taste and your personal approach to the matter.
If everything is in order with your papers, the neighbors are not against it, and the cultural protection authority does not find your apartment of any interest for posterity, your application will be considered and after 45 days an affirmative decision will be made. From this moment you can start working.
Office space is non-residential by default, but not every office is suitable for hosting a hostel. There are five main categories of office space. Let's look at them briefly:
- Class A: office space of the highest class. Typically, such offices are located in separate buildings, occupy several floors, are equipped to the latest standards, have their own parking, and often an elevator. These prestigious premises are quite in demand in their class and are not considered as hostel premises.
- class B: the same thing, but a lower class. Such premises are located in new buildings or reconstructed mansions in the capital. Class A offices often move into this category after several years of operation.
- class C: these are office premises leased by industrial enterprises and, as a rule, do not meet the standards of residential premises. Such offices often do not even have ventilation, so the profitability of converting them into a hostel is a big question.
- class D: office premises in buildings requiring major renovation. These are relatively inexpensive areas that are not designed for permanent occupancy. The building may not comply with a number of sanitary or fire safety standards and placing a hostel in them is unacceptable.
- class E: this includes premises not originally intended for offices, but converted due to necessity. These can also be apartments transferred to non-residential stock, basement and semi-basement floors. Excluding options with basement areas, class E offices, if well located, can be considered suitable for a hostel.
When starting work, it is important to remember: despite the fact that the apartment has been transferred to the status of non-residential premises, you still have neighbors, and their peace is partly the key to the stable operation of your enterprise, not disturbed by inspections of regulatory authorities or a visit from a local police officer. Therefore, first of all, you should take care of good sound insulation for your guests. It is known that the target audience of hostels is young people under 30 years old, and having become friends, they can make a lot of noise. Along with the rapid growth in the number of hostels in our country, the question of how to close a hostel in a non-residential premises becomes relevant in proportion to the number of citizens dissatisfied with careless hosteliers. On the contrary, there are cases where poorly equipped hostels on high floors of apartment buildings continued to operate successfully for a long time solely due to good relations with neighbors.
The law obliges you to equip your hostel with the appropriate number of washbasins, toilets and showers, based on the ratio of one bathroom per 10 guests. That is, with 31 beds in the hostel, you will have to equip 4 restrooms. GOST, which came into force in 2015, sets standards for the minimum bed size of 190x80cm for a single bed and 190x140cm for a double bed. In the absence of a partition, the distance between the beds should be at least 75cm, and, with a minimum height of the bedroom of 2.5m, the distance from the top tier of the bed to the ceiling should not be less than 75cm. Three-tier and higher beds were prohibited.
Protecting the guests' right to free space, from now on each guest has 4 square meters, including a bed. Usually, for a comfortable stay, a person requires 5-6 meters of free space, but we will leave this to the conscience of the hostelier. Here we are talking about the choice between saving usable space and the prestige of the establishment.
- Friday, 13 May 2016 00:00
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- SPECIAL VIDEO ON THE TOPIC:
At a plenary meeting on May 13, the State Duma of the Russian Federation considered a bill prohibiting the placement of hotels and hostels in residential premises. The draft federal law “On Amendments to Article 17 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation” (in terms of prohibiting the use of residential premises as a hotel, other means of temporary accommodation, as well as the provision of hotel services in them) was adopted unanimously in the first reading. 416 deputies voted in favor.
As previously reported, the bill was submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation on September 7, 2015. Initially, it was introduced by a group of deputies led by the chairman of the Duma Committee on Housing Policy and Housing and Communal Services, Galina Khovanskaya. To date, the number of initiators of the bill has increased to 34 people.
The explanatory note to the document states that the use of residential premises as mini-hotels leads to a violation of the housing rights of residents of houses living in apartments adjacent to hostels. In addition, the deputies drew attention to the fact that activities related to the provision of hotel services can only be carried out after the transfer of residential premises to non-residential premises.
At the same time, the Housing Code does not exclude the possibility of transferring an apartment in an apartment building to non-residential premises, provided that this apartment is located on the ground floor. Or, if the apartment is located above the first floor, there should be premises below it that are also not residential. To organize hostels or mini-hotels in such premises, a separate entrance must be organized, fire safety requirements and hygiene standards must be observed.
The State Duma Committee on Housing Policy and Housing and Communal Services considered the bill on October 7, 2015 and recommended its adoption in the first reading.
However, the vote on the bill determining the fate of hostels has been repeatedly postponed. The adoption of such a law was opposed by representatives of the hostel market, a number of experts in the hospitality industry, as well as some federal departments, including the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, whose representatives promised to prepare an alternative version of the law.
To discuss the further fate of the bill “On Amendments to Article 17 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation,” parliamentary hearings were organized, the participants of which supported the bill on February 9, and recommended that the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopt it in the first reading.
However, even after this, the vote on the bill was postponed several times. According to one version, previously voiced by business ombudsman Boris Titov, the scandalous document was supposed to be considered only by the next convocation of the lower house of the Russian parliament. The last time the consideration of the “hostel law” was postponed indefinitely during a meeting of the State Duma on April 12.
Finally, on May 12, 2016, at a meeting of the Duma Council, it was decided to submit the bill to the lower house of the Russian parliament. The next day, May 13, it was considered and adopted unanimously in the first reading. 416 deputies supported the adoption of the bill. The leaders of the United Russia and A Just Russia factions announced their support for the bill.
As stated by the speaker, deputy from Sergei Katasonov, the deputies and members of the government came to an agreement after discussions. According to the deputy, apartment owners can dispose of their housing only within the framework established by the Housing Code. Any residence in an apartment by people who are not related to it is a sign of commercial activity, which is prohibited under the Housing Code.
According to the deputy, hostels located in residential buildings interfere with the work of “normal hostels”, which arise and develop on the basis of non-residential premises and detached buildings.
The co-rapporteur, Galina Khovanskaya, referred to a growing flow of complaints, including from residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and even cited several letters, the authors of which begged deputies to ban the operation of hostels in residential buildings. According to the deputy, almost all departments of the Russian government were in favor of the adoption of the law. The only supporter of “tourism on bunks,” Galina Khovanskaya emphasized, was the Ministry of Culture, which blocked the adoption of the law. It was the lack of a unified position of the Russian government on this issue that for a long time prevented the consideration of the “law on hostels.”
Opponents of this law are confident that its adoption in its current form will jeopardize a large part of the hostel market, which was formed on the basis of residential real estate. As a study conducted by the League of Hostels in December 2015 showed, about 80% of mini-hotels and apartments in Moscow are located in residential areas. According to some data, about 70% of hostels may leave the Moscow market alone, and some will simply go “into the shadows.”
Their opponents, including among officials, argue that hostels of this kind themselves pose a threat to the peace and safety of local residents and do not comply with fire safety requirements, hygiene and other standards. This position is particularly defended by the leadership of Rospotrebnadzor.
It was previously reported that the Moscow department of Rospotrebnadzor suspended the operation of 26 hostels in 2015-2016, and 550 complaints were received about the operation of the hostels.
As previously reported, on March 10, a massive inspection of the capital's hostels began, and two-thirds of the inspected accommodation facilities were " rubber flats"According to the Department of National Policy, Interregional Relations and Tourism of Moscow, only 122 out of 352 hostels in Moscow meet the requirements, i.e. about 70% of the capital's hostels operate with certain violations.
It is worth noting that the adoption of the “hostel law” in the first reading does not yet have any legal consequences for the hostel market. In order for this law to come into force, it must be adopted in three readings, approved by the Federation Council, and then it must be signed by the President of the Russian Federation.
We remind you that the problem and prospects for the existence of the hostel market in the context of changing Russian legislation were considered by the participants of the round table held on February 17, 2016:
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On January 1, 2015, the National Standard of the Russian Federation “Accommodation Services. General requirements for hostels" GOST R 56184–2014.
It was developed by OJSC All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Certification (JSC VNIIS) with the participation of the Non-Profit Partnership for Promoting the Development of Hostels “LEAGUE OF HOSTELS” and NP “Interregional Association for the Development of the Hostel Industry”. This standard was submitted for consideration by the Technical Committee for Standardization TC 199 “Tourist services and services of accommodation facilities”, and approved and put into effect by Order of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology dated October 23, 2014 No. 1393-st.
The main provisions of the document are explained by lawyer Natalya Petrovskaya, who took an active part in the emergence of the standard.
The standard defines a hostel as an economical accommodation facility intended for temporary accommodation, mainly for low-budget tourism, with rooms of varying capacities and bathrooms, usually outside the room, as well as premises (zones, places) for guests to communicate.
The standard establishes general requirements for hostels, requirements for the services provided in them, safety and environmental requirements, as well as requirements for personnel.
A significant part of the requirements for hostels coincides with the requirements for other accommodation facilities. For example, the standard establishes that the use of basement floors, basements and rooms without windows as living rooms is not allowed: in the basement and basement floors of hostels it is allowed to install public premises for the temporary stay of guests: sanitary and hygienic premises (showers, toilets, laundry rooms) etc.), premises for the provision of additional services (hairdressing salons, shopping facilities, buffets and other catering facilities, rooms with slot machines, saunas, etc.), utility rooms (rooms for storing luggage, equipment, rooms for maids, stewards and etc.) and parking for cars and motorcycles, subject to the tightness of the ceilings and the drainage device for vehicle exhaust gases.
At the same time, quite a lot of provisions of the standard are devoted to the characteristics of hostels. For example, it is established that the area of living rooms/rooms in hostels is determined at the rate of at least four square meters per bed, single-tier or double-tier, including the area occupied by the bed. The height (from floor to ceiling) of living rooms/rooms must be at least 2.5 m. The height of corridors and halls must be at least 2.1 m. The distance from the upper bed (in a bunk arrangement) to the ceiling must be at least 75 cm .
Multi-occupancy living rooms/rooms in hostels can be either shared for men and women (mixed room) or separate, at the discretion of the hostel administration. In this case, guests must be warned in advance which of the rooms/rooms is mixed, and which is allowed for only men or only women.
Hostels must be provided with bathrooms at the rate of at least one toilet cubicle and one washbasin per 15 people and at least one shower cubicle per 15 people. In large hostels, it is recommended to install separate bathrooms and showers for men and women.
Hostels should have a designated common area for meetings, communication, and relaxation of guests, located next to the reception service, in the halls, on the floors, in the kitchen, etc., and it is also recommended to equip kitchens, kitchenettes, dining rooms, rooms or other places for eating and preparing food using self-service, which are equipped with the necessary equipment and kitchen utensils, utensils, tableware, food storage containers and cleaning supplies.
The standard also determines that hostels can be located in a separate building or occupy part of a building (floor, entrance), an apartment or several apartments in one building (on one or several different floors). Hostels located in apartments of multi-apartment residential buildings, usually mini-hostels and small hostels, may have an entrance through a common entrance with neighbors (owners or tenants of other apartments located in the same entrance) subject to the requirements of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the standard classifies hostels with up to 25 residents as mini-hostels, as small hostels as those with 25 to 50 residents, and hostels with more than 50 residents, according to the standard, are considered large hostels.
Recently, several materials have been published in the media, which noted that the State Duma is considering a bill on the actual “ban of hostels”. Considering how this market segment has grown, such news has seriously alarmed both business and ordinary citizens who often travel around the country and use the services of economical hotels.
I don’t really believe that hostels interfere with home residents so much that they should be banned.
There is an opinion that the pressure on the hostel market is lobbied by the owners of classic hostels, who want to reduce the supply on the market by 2018 in order to make money on the World Cup.
But no one can either prove or disprove this thesis, and therefore it is pointless to discuss the political component.
Let’s better discuss the legal aspects (and they are at the center of the scandal). The bill reads as follows: “The placement of hotels and other accommodation facilities in residential premises, the provision of hotel services and other accommodation services is not allowed.” To put it simply, there are three types of real estate for temporary residence: hotels; hostels; residential premises (houses, apartments, rooms). The first two are just - accommodation facilities.
A classic hotel in residential premises is unimaginable. For example, hotels have adopted a category system and without a certificate of category assignment, the provision of hotel services is not allowed (Government Decree No. 1085). It is unlikely that we have at least one hotel that has a certificate of category and is located in residential premises (not in a residential building, but in residential premises, there is a difference).
Hostel according to GOST R 56184-2014 - This is “an economical accommodation facility intended for temporary residence, mainly for low-budget tourism, having rooms of various capacities and bathrooms, usually outside the room/room, as well as premises (zones, places) for guests to communicate.”
“Accommodation services” that will be prohibited from being provided in residential premises are listed in GOST R 54606-2011. For hostels, this list looks like this:
- reception and accommodation of tourists with working hours of at least 12 hours a day;
- delivery of correspondence to living tourists;
- morning wake-up (at the request of resident tourists);
- daily room cleaning, including making beds;
- change of bed linen at least once every five days;
- change of towels at least once every three days;
- provision of an iron and ironing board;
- storing valuables in a safe/safe deposit boxes in the reception service or in a mini-safe in the room;
- medical services: ambulance call, first aid kit;
- calling a taxi (at the request of resident tourists);
- computer, Internet, fax services.
For furnished rooms it is even more sparse:
- reception and accommodation for at least 8 hours a day;
- cleaning of the living room (including making the bed) for each arrival;
- change of bed linen at least once every five days;
- change of towels at least once every three days.
If the hostelier stops providing these services, then pure rental of residential premises will remain.
The owner or even the tenant (tenant) of an apartment (and it doesn’t even matter whether it is a legal entity, individual entrepreneur or citizen) has the right to provide it to individuals for temporary residence for any period, including daily rent; there are no prohibitions on this in the law, and they are not foreseen. Chapter 35 of the Civil Code allows this to be done in a completely unambiguous manner.
Hint: cleaning and linen change, of course, should be left, but do not charge for them on a separate line; reception and accommodation can be carried out by an employee sitting in a neighboring apartment or even in the concierge.
Moreover, with a certain legal elaboration of the issue, you will be able to rent out at least the entire apartment, at least individual rooms in it, even the beds in these rooms. How does this differ from the current hostel system and what are hosteliers so afraid of?
Let's look at the case law on hostels. Why are hosteliers being prosecuted in courts now?
In arbitration courts they sue because of:
1. Violations of migration legislation - for example, the resettlement of foreign citizens staying in the Russian Federation illegally (Cases No. A53-21482/2015, A05-13652/2014)
2. Placement of hostels in premises unsuitable for habitation - basements and basements (Case No. A44-5687/2013)
3. Violations of rules for maintaining residential premises (Case No. A26-369/2015)
4. The main body of arbitration cases on hostels - ordinary business disputes, collection of rent, etc.
In courts of general jurisdiction, hostels are treated poorly.
Basically, cases against hostels are considered along the same lines: some offended resident or prosecutor comes, brings screenshots from the hostel’s website as evidence, the court happily admits that hotel services are being provided in the apartment and decides to ban the hostel.
I counted about a dozen such cases - For statistics this is a lot, for hostels throughout the country - nothing. As an example - local Sverdlovsk case No. 33-18818/2015 dated December 11, 2015. It (and other similar ones) says: “activities for the provision of hotel services can be carried out only after the transfer of residential premises (or a set of residential premises) to non-residential and equipment of the specified premises with the equipment necessary to provide consumers with services of appropriate quality: a soundproofing system for rooms, fire safety equipment, a burglar alarm, safes for accepting money and jewelry for storage, means for cleaning and sanitary cleaning of rooms.”
This sounds scary and seems to disprove my theory, but there are two fundamental points:
1.If the courts are right and the hostel - This is really a hotel service that cannot be provided in residential premises, then there is no point in hosteliers panicking because of the new law- what they are afraid of already exists, and has existed for a long time - since 2008. However, no one has really gone into the shadows, everyone is working, and only 10 out of a million are banned, and that, in my opinion, is illegal (in all the cases that I have read, the same type of unsuitable conclusions are drawn from documents that actually do not prohibit anything).
2. The most important thing is that the courts, when making their decisions against hostels, relied on GOST “Tourist services. Accommodation facilities. General requirements. GOST R 51185-2008”, for some reason believing that this GOST does not allow the provision of hotel services in housing (see quote from the judicial act above). But from January 1, 2016, this GOST was canceled, and the new one, which was adopted in its place, not only does not contain any prohibitions on hostels in housing, but also directly allows them. That is, in the case of such a case, now the courts will not even be able to properly motivate their decision.
So since 2016, with the abolition of GOST, the situation for hosteliers has even improved. If we deliberately exaggerate, then we can say that before they were illegal, but now - quite “in law”.
Amendments to the Housing Code, when they are adopted, will not in themselves significantly worsen the situation. I think that the courts against hostels will develop according to the same pattern: the plaintiff will claim that hostel services are provided in the apartment, and the defendant hostelier will have to prove that in fact he rents out the apartment under a rental agreement, and does not provide accommodation services.
Let me emphasize: no one, unfortunately, can guarantee that problems will not begin later.
When the law is adopted, and hosteliers rename their agreements for the provision of accommodation services into agreements for the rental of residential premises and will not disappear from the market, the initiators will understand that the scheme did not work, and will either urgently introduce amendments to the non-working law that will eliminate the loophole, or adopt some government decree, where there will be criteria for the differences between renting and a hostel: for example, if an apartment is rented to more than three tenants, for a day, by a legal entity - This is a hostel, not a rental. But that will be a different story. Let's wait and see if they guess, we won't give away everything.
Among all the diversity on the hotel accommodation market, hostels remain especially attractive for budget travel. Inexpensive overnight accommodation in a clean, heated room, in a cheerful company of students and tourists, has conquered the domestic temporary housing market in a matter of years. Many who want to test their strength in the hotel business turn their attention to this particular format of mini-hotels. The relatively low barrier to entry into the hostel business makes it attractive for novice hosteliers, and the popularization of budget tourism in the world promises high profitability for the establishment. The organization of the work of hostels, the legislative framework for mini-hotel services, the arrangement of premises for guests and other issues that a hostelier needs to know will be discussed in this article.
The fashion for European hostels came to us relatively recently. St. Petersburg and Moscow remain the pioneers and flagships in terms of the number of hostels in Russia. Today, these megacities have thousands of operating hostels in all corners of the city and beyond. The downside to the popularity of hostel housing is the so-called. apartment hostels, which often violate the norms of the housing code and interfere with ordinary citizens. Hostel clients scurrying around the entrance in the middle of the night, with huge bags, do not inspire confidence in residents of apartment buildings.
Other businessmen rented office space for their business that was not intended to accommodate people and did not meet the minimum sanitary and fire safety standards. Hostels often occupied basement and attic floors and warehouses. Although hostels were initially conceived as a means of budget accommodation in fairly comfortable conditions, in reality the comfort of guests was often neglected. To protect the rights of the hostel’s neighbors, as well as its guests, GOST on hostels was developed, which came into force in 2015.
A year later, the standard was supplemented by a package of necessary amendments, further limiting the activities of apartment hostels in favor of other residents of the building. The new conditions have put most hostels on the brink of closure. We will consider the main provisions and requirements of GOST, including new amendments, below.
Types of hostels
The modern classification of hostels divides them into three types:
- Large hostels, designed for 50-100 or more guests. The clients of such hostels are often participants in international conferences and youth gatherings. When arriving in large groups, guests do not experience any difficulties in staying in one large room. Rally participants, for example, can continue communicating in an informal setting, which the hostel offers. Such hostels are often equipped with a conference room and are ready to offer quite a decent hotel set, in the form of restaurant services, a spa salon and a gym. City hostels of this type usually occupy entire floors, always the first ones, and in their structure they are close to traditional hotels, adjusted for shared accommodation and correspondingly low prices.
- Average hostels, from 20 to 50 guests. A very promising type of hostel despite the fact that, according to the new rules, hostels can only occupy the first floors of buildings (we will explain why below). When buying premises for a hostel, taking into account all the costs of arranging it, it is wise to use the area with maximum efficiency. Sometimes medium-capacity hostels can be opened on the principle of roadside motels, but this is rare. Hostels are often used as overnight accommodation for budget tourism, and therefore accommodation within the city will be more appropriate.
- Small hostels, or mini-hostels, with a capacity of up to 20 guests. Until recently, the most popular type of temporary housing. In the absence of a clear legislative framework, numerous apartment dwellers have become such hostels. With a little effort, the apartment turned into a hostel, bringing the rental price to a new level of profitability. Often the hostel apartments themselves were rented; sometimes such hostels existed only during the tourist season.
There is no need to talk about the inconvenience caused to the neighbors of such a hostel. It’s easy to imagine a flurry of indignation when an apartment on one staircase turns into a dormitory.
Sometimes apartment hostels used as guesthouses, offering overnight accommodation for only two or three guests. Is it fair to call such an establishment a hostel?
It is worth mentioning this type of hostel as a dormitory. These are hostels in which 20 or more guests simultaneously live in one room. Usually 4-8 people can live in one room, but dorms are a little cheaper than other hostels, and are almost ideal for a large company.
A question that has set many hosteliers on edge. As we said, GOST introduces several standards for hostel premises, which not all mini-hotels can comply with. So, for example, the minimum ceiling height of 2.5 m, stated in GOST, may not correspond to individual Khrushchev buildings with a height of 2.48 m.
In general, the stated standards can be called quite democratic; most residential premises easily fit into the established standards. The height of passages in corridors is rarely lower than 2.1 m, and the GOST position on the arrangement of kitchens and common rooms is purely advisory. According to the current law, the hostelier is not obliged to take care of the kitchen if catering establishments are located within walking distance from the hostel. In the realities of the city, among dozens of coffee shops and restaurants, it is impossible to find such a place.
Affects GOST and sanitary issues. According to the new amendments, a sanitary unit includes a toilet, shower and washbasin, and can serve no more than 10 guests. For thirty guests, the hostel will now need three bathrooms, or one expanded one, taking into account the standards.
The cornerstone of the latest edition was the question of transferring premises to hostels from residential to non-residential. There are a number of requirements for non-residential premises, the main of which is location on the first floors of the house and the establishment of an entrance separate from the general entrance. Such premises can occupy the second floor only if the first floor has already been converted to non-residential use. With the adoption of the amendments, most apartment hostels will be illegal. It becomes practically impossible to organize a hostel in a rented apartment, since the procedure for transferring it to a non-residential property requires the participation of the owner of the area, and in most cases the latter is not interested in such an event.
The reform in the law on temporary accommodation was the result of numerous complaints from residents about violations of order in the house by hostels. It is worth recognizing that often such complaints are quite justified. Hostel clients are mainly students and young people on vacation. Without strict internal regulations and careful control by the administrator, the hostel can easily turn into an ordinary hostel with all that it implies. And on the contrary, the respectful attitude of hostel owners towards forced neighbors allows such establishments to flourish even now, working contrary to the law.
The main rule in the work of a hostel should be the daily routine. After a certain hour, the hostel does not accept new guests, silence is observed. The hostel regime often prohibits guests from bringing guests, including for lovemaking. The soundproofing of the hostel plays a decisive role for its neighbors.
Alcohol and tobacco are prohibited in most hostels. The staircase must be kept in exemplary cleanliness and order. There are cases when hosteliers organized the renovation of the entire entrance. Good relations with neighbors are the key to long-term operation of the hostel, not marred by a series of complaints and inspections.
Internal routine will help maintain order inside the hostel itself. Strict rules guarantee a safe and comfortable stay for all guests. But sometimes the rules are specific and work more towards the image of the establishment. These include the upper limit on the age of guests. Thus, some “youth hostels” are ready to provide their comfort only to clients no older than 25 years old. Other hostels limit the maximum length of stay - a fairly common practice for budget temporary housing, allowing you to maintain this status.
To ensure the successful operation of their establishments, hostel owners often form professional associations. Hostel unions exist all over the world as it provides a number of benefits.
When traveling around the country, tourists often learn about other hostels along the route from the previous hostel. The fame of such establishments also depends on word of mouth, and hosteliers try to help each other by spreading information about other hostels.
Being part of the association, the hostel can purchase consumables, from detergents and incandescent lamps to furniture, at favorable wholesale prices.
There are large chains of hostels operating under a common franchise. By purchasing the right to use a franchise, a hostelier saves himself from a number of problems associated with promoting his establishment. Experienced specialists will help you get comfortable in this business and resolve possible legal issues. On the other hand, working as a franchise deprives your hostel of its individuality, forcing you to work according to a proven scheme.
Read about the internal structure of the hostel and how to establish a hostel, observing the latest GOST requirements, on our website.
