Historic Hostels Impress Reporters
Inspired by the recent SYHA TV advert, a reporter from the Ross-Shire Journal has taken his young family on a short hostelling tour of Scotland.
Their zig-zag route across the country took in a cross-section of SYHA hostels: Carbisdale Castle, Edinburgh Central and Tongue. Carbisdale seems to have been a big hit:
Carbisdale Castle near Culrain is a jewel in the glittering crown of breathtakingly diverse hostels the SYHA has managed to bring under its wing since inception in 1931. Once you’ve feasted on the imposing exterior and convinced wide-eyed children that, yes, they really are going to sleep here tonight, it’s time to get to grips with the ghost…
What castle isn’t haunted, right? The SYHA blurb does nothing to discourage the legend — and nor does the collection of ghostly Italian marble statues lining the main gallery as you enter. There’s a spooky, otherworldly feel about the sprawling castle whose chequered history only adds to the experience.
Meanwhile, across the pond, the San Diego News Network have been sampling some historic YHA hostels. Their itinerary included Hartington, Whitby and YHA’s own castle: St Briavels. They come away impressed by how cheaply you can stay in some truly impressive buildings. They’re also pleasantly surprised to discover that you don’t have to be a youth to go hostelling. Indeed, as a perceptive hostel staffer points out:
“Without the over-40s, there would be no hostels,” said Anthony Rees, a YHA volunteer. “Families, middle-aged and older travelers are some of our most enthusiastic guests.”
I do wish YHA’s marketing people would grasp this fact. Just about all the publicity material emanating from Matlock is dominated by pictures of children, young people and maybe the occaional parent. The age profile of people actually staying in hostels is much more diverse, and there’s a huge market of older people out there who don’t know that hostels are available to them as well as to youngsters.
I also hope that press coverage like this will encourage YHA to continue to look for and operate historic buildings as youth hostels. Purpose-built places may be easier and cheaper to run, but they just don’t have the “wow factor” of sleeping in a genuine castle!
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“Without the over 40s there would be no hostels” – not really a problem if everyone takes to Youth Hostelling around their fourtieth birthday, but that simply doesn’t happen and all us now over 40 started hostelling as teenagers at which time all ages used Youth Hostels.
So can the YHA really expect anyone to be using their hostels thirty or so years from now when all us over 40s are too infirm to put our boots on or are alraedy at that great Youth hostel in the sky ?
Discuss !
Unless there is a radical change in strategy, hostelling will continue to decline until there will only be a handful of symbolic hostels left.
The organisation is in terminal demogrpahic decline. Why?
A number of key factors, primarily that SYHA have lost touch with the youth market (as individuals) and also have no serious interest in youth groups/schools particularly from low income backgrounds. Up until 15 years ago SYHA had a virtual monopoly on cheap hostel type accommodation. Today there are over 100 thriving Independent hostels. Alas the private sector is doing what youth hostels used to do, but better.
The honest question has to be, unless they provide budget accommodation for youth groups (and i don;t think £75 per night for a family for 4 is affordable)to encourage them to discover the great outdoors, then who or what are hostels for? Why should a badly run organisation who caters for the middle aged, middle class have charitable status??