If failure is the best teacher, as any experienced business owner will tell you, then a certain hostel in Brisbane deserves the fast-track to tenure. Seldom does a place teach you so much about sound hospitality practices by doing everything wrong. Cloud 9 Backpackers on Upper Roma St. is such a place.

In just three days we learned precisely how not to run a hostel if your goal is to give guests a memorable experience and encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

1. Don’t offer lockers

This is the most effective way to turn rooms, at best, into slums, and, at worst, into an obstacle course with packs, shoes, and underwear as hurdles. As an added bonus, guests are forced to carry their laptops with them all day as the only theft deterrent.

2. Keep the kitchen filthy and ill-equipped

Nothing like cooking among the leftovers from yesterday’s guests and seeing cockroaches strolling on the floor tiles. Pots without handles turn cooking into a budget thrill ride. To top it off, charge a $10 deposit to use any plate or utensil or cup.

3. Model bathrooms after discount campsites

To start with, don’t put bathrooms on every floor, thus forcing your guests to negotiate dark stairs when it’s time for that late-night toilet call. Don’t offer liquid soap, paper towels or hand dryers: let the paying clients take care of themselves. Put one toilet paper roll to be shared among six stalls.

4. Threaten guests with eviction whenever possible

Be firm and foster an environment of absolute mistrust. Put posters everywhere that guarantee summary explusion without a refund for any misdeed: bringing boys into the female dorms, blocking the fire exit with packs, not washing dishes, drinking beer, using a sleeping bag…

5. Deprive your guests of silence

In the common room, where guests rest, enjoy their meals and socialize, install a television and keep it at the highest volume. Make sure all programming involves celebrity gossip and infomercials.

If the reception desk is next to the common area, demand that employees play their own music at a volume that competes with the TV. Cacophonies are the ideal soundtracks to start the day.

6. Charge a deposit for everything.

$10 for a warm blanket. $10 for any plate or utensil. $10 for the room keys. $10 to borrow a DVD, as well as the DVD player, which remains locked in reception and must be plugged in by guests themselves.

7. Run deceptive advertising

On your website and on leaflets, call yourself the city’s favourite five-star hostel. Mention a luxury bathroom and a stainless steel kitchen. Shrug when guests point out the reality.

8. Blame guests for vermin

If a patron complains that mice in the rooms are eating his food, tell him it’s his fault for attracting the pests in the first place.

9. Mistreat and underpay staff

Don’t foster any kind of workplace pride among hostel employees. Put them in rooms infested with bedbugs, don’t offer a private staff room, and pay them a third-world wage.

This way, when guests complain about the conditions, they won’t feel the slightest desire to improve their experience. Some might even say that complaining is futile, since the owner “doesn’t give a shit about anything.”