OUR STORY
Once upon a time( 1992 to be precise ), there was a student ...
1992
In the winter of 1992 a university student Petr Čech has an idea of renting college dormitories that are empty during the summer holidays. That idea looks interesting, so in May he founds a trade license, agrees with the university and from July at the age of 22 he starts business. Petros travel agency was established. From now on, we are operating as a team. 👍
The beginnings are not as optimistic as planned, but gradually the business starts better and better. The huge thanks go to Petr´s sister and his school friends who are helping us as volunteers. Little by little we make it up to 4 hostels and about 700 beds daily. We rent student rooms not only from ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) but also from VŠE (University of Economics in Prague).
Everything is done by several tens of temporary workers, who are also university students. They are offered a free accommodation in Prague during their work, so these jobs are very interesting for the young people.
1994
We start to offer accommodation in other seasons as well and we take the advantage of other cheaper capacities and hostels all over the Prague. At the same time individual clients, groups and travel agencies turn to Petros while looking for a cheap accommodation in Prague.
We start from scratch and have no contacts in tourism, therefore we are happy for all coming requests. Most of the travel agencies that are contacting us are from the Eastern countries. Why? They are new start-ups like us and their clients are looking for some cheap accommodation.
Our first business trip is to Lithuania. We pass it with old car Skoda Favorit. This interesting and very positive journey assures us that our idea is correct. Over time, we will travel almost all of Eastern and Central Europe.
1998
The next step is the boom of the Internet. We ask our friends running a start-up IT company to register some interesting domains - among them is www.hostel.cz.
We start to offer our hostels in Prague on that web site and the number of booking is skyrocketing.
Our team is growing as fast as coming requests and hostel.cz is becaming one of the most successful Czech travel agencies for backpackers.
2002
This year is very important to us. People from the Easter and Central Europe can not get enough of travelling and because of so many requests, we start to offer most of Prague hostels and later even in the whole Czech Republic.
Our business has outgrown the borders of the Czech Republic. Everything works great - we create our own online booking system and we have 1-2 local operators in each offered country. Thanks to our unbeatable prices, knowledge and courage we manage to get our web sites to the top spots on Google.
We offered our services in 14 from 21 Central and Eastern European countries.
2005
In addition to the accommodation offer, we start to offer other travel services such as transfers, catering and guides. It works well. We also establish a joint-stock company and transfer all activities to it. Its name is 1BigEurope - like our dream of one big Europe and travelling without borders. More about this agency on www.1bigeurope.com.
2010
This year we have to make very difficulte decision - if it is still effective to solve every individual reservation by our own or join forces with a reliable partner. After weighing pros and cons, we have started cooperation with confidently known partners. We are happy that the quality of our services did not suffer and we are still among the best Czech travel agencies.
TODAY
At present we do not operate any hostel by ourselves. An online reservation system is the best solution for the individuals - it is easy, clear and fast. However the groups appraise the personal touch because they usually require also other travel services like tours, daily programmes, transfers, adjusted payments and many other special needs. Thanks to our student history and our strong positition on the Czech travel market, we are able to fulfill all your travel dreams.