The impact of tourism captures headlines. Overtourism. Too many visitors destroying the places they come to see. Reports of changes in places we love to visit.
And tourism still remains the pursuit of the wealthy, despite the efforts of Thomas Cook, Billy Butlin and TA Leonard to bring travel within the reach of millions. Their vision seems to be getting lost.
With all this gloom about the future of travel, it’s helpful to remember that it doesn’t need to be this way and there is cause for optimism.
Before the ideas of sustainable tourism had been invented, youth hostels already supported the goals of sustainable development including ending poverty, ensuring healthy lives and well being, quality education, and protecting and sustaining terrestrial ecosystems.
The youth hostel movement based itself in large towns and cities, aiming to open accommodation in nearby areas of countryside. You could call it “travel to the big nearby”. The policy of opening youth hostels in places close to important towns also ensured that youth hostels were there for anyone.
Members and key partners in local areas made decisions about where to open hostels, and finances were highly devolved. Years ahead of their time, youth hostels were based on community involvement in running youth hostels.
Youth hostels set out to conserve the built and natural environments. They used old buildings wherever possible to avoid imposing clashing modern houses on sensitive locations.
They played a key role in the campaign for conserving the countryside including using a very early code for the sustainable use of the countryside in their annual handbooks. Members were important campaigners for conservation of the countryside.
Youth hostels provided very simple accommodation, using minimal resources. They were committed to the idea of simplicity, an inheritance from romanticism and the arts and craft movement.
Most obviously they insisted that their users travelled on foot, by bicycle or public transport, and banned the use of private cars.
Youth hostels opened travel for everyone through a simple policy of a single low price for all users at all the accommodation offered. A shilling a night was their mantra. They ushered in a new era of low cost, independent travel which is still with us today.
Youth hostels offer a model of sustainable tourism worth serious study, one with ideas that can contribute to current concerns with tourism and its impact on our lives.
SIMPLY HOSTELS 
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