Hostel owners and managers from around the world are preparing for the fifth Annual Conference & Awards hosted by Hostelworld.com, the leading provider of online reservations to the budget travel market. Industry leaders, hostel owners and travel experts from around the world will gather on January 26-27, 2009 in Dublin at the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place, to discuss opportunities for growing a hostel business in the face of an economic slowdown by focusing on margins, return on investment, improving overall yield and tapping into new and emerging markets.

“There is a lot of potential for the budget travel industry during these tough economic times. Hostels are one of the few businesses that are seeing a steady increase in bookings and attracting new customers,” said Hostelworld.com spokesperson Aisling White. "We are looking forward to hosting this conference to discuss alternative ways to keep hostel bookings up and our industry steady.”

The conference will feature a variety of panel discussions from industry experts as well as the anticipated award ceremony of this year’s HOScar (HOStelworld Customers Annual Ratings) Awards, which celebrates the best hostels across the globe. The only awards recognising hostels, HOScars will be presented to hostels across a range of categories, culminating with the announcement of the Top 10 Hostels in the World in 2008. The ceremony will take place on Monday 26 January where awards will be presented to hostels with the highest customer ratings and reviews as voted by more than 800,000 Hostelworld customers.

The full list of HOSCARS winners will be available on 27 January, 2009.