SYHA Recession Dividend
We’ve already seen a boost in YHA bookings due to the credit crunch, well the same is happening north of the border, according to BBC News:
Louise Nowell, head of sales and marketing at the Scottish Youth Hostels Association, said: “Our advance bookings are up 7% compared to the same time last year.
In an ordinary year I wouldn’t have expected the figures to go up as they have. There’s a reason for it – the economic situation.
The exchange rate is keeping Brits at home, foreign visitors are getting more value for money, and people are becoming more value-conscious due to the credit crunch. Suddenly we’re being seen as an affordable destination.”
It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!
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Let’s see what effect swine flu has?
SYHA ‘an affordable destination’ I don’t think so!
I was hoping to go hostelling with the family (my wife and 2 children aged 6 and 8) and the quote a night at Carbisdale castle was £72.50 per night, room not even en-suite.
I’m sorry but hostelling with my family is no longer affordable. Its a real shame. Compare a weeks hostelling in Scotland (small non en-suite hostel rooms in bunkbeds) costing over £500 with a 4 star cottage with 3 bedrooms huge kitchen, lounge, lovely garden etc, for around £350-£450 a week
where would you go?
SYHA better watch out or they will lose the family market forever!
I couldn’t agree more, Life Member. I am a Life Member too and looked forward to the time when I could take my family hostelling, but the prices we have been quoted for family rooms have led us to look elsewhere. We now collect the tokens in the Sun (say what you like) and have had some very good holidays at caravan parks and holiday camps up and down the country. Granted it does not involve walking from one place to another (which is what we like to do) but we are out and about so much that we only use the place for sleeping in (a bit like hostels in that respect, really). We have also taken to camping and have found that the children love it.
One thing that does irritate me is the negative slant that the YHA puts on things like ‘not doing chores’. I seem to recall that they were called hostel duties, not chores, and they were a small price to pay for being able to stay in a clean, functional hostel at an affordable price. My children are expected to do chores when camping and they don’t moan about it at all.
I agree with both of the comments above. SYHA seem to have lost all sense of purpose. Since when was hostelling with your family supposed more expensive than rented a luxury house?
Seems to me that their priority is to increase bednight revenue to mask a decline in popularity. I suspect The age profile of their loyal members is high and as the number of active hostellers declines they have to keep raising overnight prices to keep the ship afloat.
Poor management and lack of vision sadly leaves them behind the times and vibrant independent hostel sector. Such a shame. Why don’t they connect with youth groups and get back to what they were set up for in the first place?
“Why don’t they connect with youth groups and get back to what they were set up for in the first place?”
Yes, which was ‘providing hostels or other simple accommodation for them in their travels’ – not expensive ‘luxury’ hostels with non-existent members’ kitchens, lights above every bed, commis chefs and en suites. The YHA was once a very successful and much-loved organisation which, if the views I have heard expressed are anything to go by, has managed to alienate its traditional customer base and which now has to support what seems to me to be an unnecessarily bureaucratic management structure.
The bottom line is that YHA hostels are not an inexpensive option for a holiday any more, and more favourable deals can be found elsewhere.
I see now why the prices are so high, its to help pay for anew TV advert which has been appearing in scotland recently. It seems SYHA has also rebranded as hostelling Scotland (they seem to have kept that v quiet, i’ve heard of a soft launch but this is bizarre)
what do you think of the advert? I think its pretty lame.
http://www.syha.org.uk/home.aspx
oh look it’s Marie and her broken record again
… YHA …out of touch … simple … management … cost … luxery … kitchens …
I mean this article was about SYHA and you still turn it into a dig about your views on affairs south of the border.
And then shock horror you admit you use caravan parks and holiday cottages and DON’T WALK FROM PLACE TO PLACE. So it’s ok for you to do that because it’s a caravan park but not people who use hostels?
PS – you and your middle class professional friends have still failed to answer my challenge about how you’d run YHA (or SYHA) and still make enough money to keep it going.
I do enjoy ruffling your feathers, Neil.
Only because I feel really sorry for you. You appear to be incapable of making any sort of positive contribution or suggestion.
You obviously have some sort of love for YHA but seem unable to use that energy for anything other than sniping and carping about what you see as it’s failings. If you put that same effort into something postive I’m sure you’d feel a lot better.
I’ve seen others offer you suggestions as to how to make a positive contribution but you seem to ignore them. Such a pity.
I have a positive suggestion….
why don’t SYHA employ a professional fundraiser?
Has anyone heard of another charity, that has no professional fundraisers, and has to dispose (sell) its assets because it can’t afford to run/upgrade them?
I wonder if the SYHA board really ask any questions of the paid professionals who run the organisations on their behalf. How much money has SYHA received in grants in the last 2 years?