YHAgroup.org.uk

Over at ehotelier.com they’re predicting a rosy future for hostelling, but some stiff competition for YHA in the honey pot locations on which it now seems to want to concentrate:

Hostelling is the fastest growing sector of the worldwide accommodation industry with modern hostels being run by true professionals as well as large companies. Globetrotter Inns, with properties in Edinburgh and London, have their own movie theatre, gym and supermarket in each of their properties. Along with other movers and shakers in the industry, they have recently announced ambitious expansion plans to open multiple properties throughout Europe. [...] Accor Hotels, the global hotel company with brands such as Mercure, Novotel and Sofitel among many others, have dived in headlong with their Base Backpackers brand and are already well established in New Zealand and Australia.

Can the YHA compete with organisations with the funding and marketing nouse of the big hotel chains? Only time will tell, but a strategy of shutting down small rural hostels in favour of large urban ones may prove spectacularly ill timed.

You can read the complete article in the ehotelier news archive, thanks to Jacki of the uk.rec.youth-hostel newsgroup for spotting it.

Deep in the heart of Mid Wales lie T’yn Cornel and Dolgoch, the last survivors of six hostels which once dotted the isolated Elenydd area. This is hostelling as it used to be - an open fire for warmth, gas for lighting and cooking. The addition of a shower is the only concession to 21st century comforts.

But the survival of these hostels depends on the efforts of a committed bunch of volunteers - the Elenydd Wilderness Hostels Trust. Formed after both hostels were scheduled for closure, the trust have already been able to save T’yn Cornel (with the help of two generous benefactors) and are currently raising funds to buy Dolgoch next year.

They desperately need your help, both financial and moral, to succeed in their mission. Why not join the trust and lend them your support!