Why does Hostelworld show a per-person price?
How Hostelworld displays private room prices and how Sirvoy calculates the rate sent to Hostelworld.
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If you're using Sirvoy with Hostelworld and listing private rooms, you might notice that the price shown on Hostelworld is sometimes different from what you set in Sirvoy. Here’s why.
How a per-person rate is calculated
Hostelworld requires all pricing to be sent as a per-person rate. However, that per-person rate must stay the same no matter how many guests are booking, which is different from how Sirvoy’s Flexible price model works.
To meet Hostelworld’s requirement, Sirvoy takes the room type price and divides it by the maximum occupancy to create a set per-person rate. Maximum occupancy means Number of guests plus Extra beds in the Sirvoy room type.
The price Sirvoy uses for this calculation depends on the room type’s price model:
- For a Fixed price model, Sirvoy uses the room type’s fixed price.
- For a Flexible price model, Sirvoy uses the price for the room type’s maximum occupancy.
Guests must still book the full room at maximum occupancy, meaning they’ll always pay the full room price you set in Sirvoy. Hostelworld explains this to guests on their booking page.
Example:
Fixed price
If you have a room with a fixed price of $100 and a maximum occupancy of 2, Sirvoy divides $100 by 2 and sends $50 per person to Hostelworld.
Hostelworld will show "$50 per person", but guests will still be required to book the full room and pay $100 total.
Flexible price
If you have a room with a maximum occupancy of 3, and the flexible prices are:
- $100 for 1 guest
- $110 for 2 guests
- $150 for 3 guests
Sirvoy uses the price for the maximum occupancy. In this case, Sirvoy divides $150 by 3 and sends $50 per person to Hostelworld.
Hostelworld will show "$50 per person", but guests will still be required to book the full room and pay $150 total.