Does having a dorm room define a place as a hostel?

Recently I had a comment left on the article 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hostel by Josh from HostelManagement.com.

The article suggested:

They take up a huge portion of the current travel industry – It is now estimated that there are two million hostels across the globe.

But Josh commented:

I can only imagine that it’s a typo or a mistake that their editor missed. I’ve been in the hostel industry for 8 years and the “2 million” number is just not anywhere close to reality.

Now, personally I’m not really sure. I’ve emailed Hostel Bookers (who wrote the original article to see what they say) so we will find out soon. I put forward the view that perhaps it would depend upon what you defined as a hostel.

Josh then pointed me to hostelmanagement.com were there was a discussion about what the definition of a hostel really is.

For me there are lots of places that I would class as a hostel that don’t have dorm rooms, my own defination would be a place that is fundamentally communal. Communal kitchen, facilities, common room etc would be enough to define the place as a hostel.

What do you think? Does a hostel have to have dorm rooms to class it as such? I’m not so sure.