In Dublin, Ireland on January 26, 2009 Hostelworld.com held its 7th Annual Hoscar Award Ceremony which is the event that recognizes top hostels world-wide as determined by the Hostelworld.com survey.

And here they are:

Hoscar Award winners for top hostels world-wide as awarded by Hostelworld.com

highlight indicates that hostel was top 10 for last two years

This year saw the emergence of 8 new hostels with a very strong showing by Lisbon, Portugal which has four hostels present, as opposed to only one from last year, including the Top Hostel Traveller’s House.  Krakow Poland, another hot new spot, had two represented.  This year Beijing China made the list at number 5 with Sitting in the City Walls Courtyard House.

Hostelworld.com is an internet booking engine that has done a lot on the last 8 or so years to help hostels grow and enable travelers find better accomodations.  Before Hostelworld.com travelers who arrived in a major city after 10:00 am were at the mercy of “Tourist Clerks” which is basically a person who waits in a train station that tries to send people to this or that hotel for commission.  In terms of a hotel or hostel owner Hostelworld.com has provided the ability to make reservations which belive it or not wasn’t around to any great consequence until Hostelworld.com.  After booking a hostel with Hostelworld.com and staying at that hostel travelers are sent a brief survey (it takes only two minutes) which rates a hostel’s character, location, staff, security, fun and cleanliness.  In 2008 Hostelworld says that it recieved over 800,000 results to this survey which it number crunches to determine the top hostels for it’s Hoscar Award Ceremony that it holds in Dublin it’s home.

If you book through Hostelworld.com I encourage you to fill out the survey as it is very useful to other travelers and it helps the hostels serve you better.

Happy Travels,

Chris

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