Scott Ryan has come a long way since growing up at Manyana on the South Coast.
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The former University of Wollongong student is attracting global attention after launching a new meta search engine of the 40,000 hostels listed on the world’s four major hostel booking sites Hostelworld, Hostelbookers, Hostelsclub and GoMio.
Hostelzoo.com is already regarded as the world’s largest independent hostel comparison website.
Mr Ryan spent 14 years on research, waiting for the right time to launch.
His interest in hostels began when he took a summer job at a Sydney hostel after he finished school.
He credits his UOW marketing lecturer Dr Elias Kyriazis with sparking his interest in marketing via the internet.
At UOW he was one of three undergraduate students invited to participate in the first subject in the marketing curriculum focused on marketing on the internet.
After uni he sought a marketing position at YHA. His father also worked for the hostel organisation but the only job available was for a live-in executive manager at Noosa.
Mr Ryan (pictured) took on the job for a year and gained a good understanding of the industry before returning to Wollongong to start a lifestyle business called Aboriginal Adventures which took international students to the Wreck Bay Community at Booderee National Park.
He then started a business called Seaside Media which did web and print communication.
But on a trip to Sri Lanka he met someone who worked six months of the year in a West Australian mine and spent the other six months travelling and decided that’s what he wanted to do.
Mr Ryan was able to achieve that when Seaside Media was commissioned to produce the Manly Visitors Guide twice a year.
He travelled to 37 countries and while staying in a Hostelworld facility in Vienna in 2006 the idea for Hostelzoo.com was born.
Mr Ryan was trying to book a Hostelworld room in Rome but it was booked out. So he went to a hostel booking website and managed to get the last room.
He thought it would be great if someone came up with a website that pulled together all the information from hostels around the world.
‘‘I decided to start the business in 2011. It is essentially a price comparison website for backpackers, students and other travellers,’’ Mr Ryan said.
‘‘But when it comes right down to it, it is information about accommodation availability on short notice that is most important. It is a meta search engine of all the other websites. We are the first to integrate the GoMio booking engine.’’
Mr Ryan said the global interest was immediate from associations saying there was nothing like it for the budget accommodation industry.
‘‘In the first two weeks it has generated more than $20,000 in hostel bookings.
‘‘We are getting a couple of thousand hits a day. It is just hectic. I wish we had a bigger team.’’
Hostelzoo.com is made up of Mr Ryan’s partner Donna McCarthy, his father, and developer Alex Holt who are all building inventory of other budget accommodation.
Mr Ryan said he hoped his new enterprise would help draw backpacker business to Wollongong.
