YHA wants to involve more people in running youth hostels. It’s an approach with potential for sustainable tourism, a way of maintaining and re-imagining hostels, based on YHA’s long history.
At its start, in 1930, with people eager for hostels to open, YHA lacked the resources to build or buy its own properties, and turned to others to do so, with astounding success.
Having opened its first hostel, very briefly, in late 1930, by 1938 the handbook of hostels listed 264 hostels available in England and Wales.
Connections
Of those, YHA owned 24, and held formal leaseholds on another 30. Of the rest, YHA rented some on short term tenancies, while in some communities local people ran their own hostels, known as adopted hostels.
It’s difficult to be sure how many youth hostels were privately owned and run, but as many as 100 probably were. Figures are obscure because agreements made with YHA were varied and sometimes uncertain.
https://duncanmsimpsonwriting.com/2021/11/17/adopting-an-organisation/
Private ownership was a way of connecting YHA with local communities, a social glue, binding communities and visitors together. Decisions made about hostels were made by those living in communities, not by those in distant bodies and authorities.
Some people in YHA dreamed of a time when communities would run their own youth hostels. Jack Catchpool, YHA’s national secretary and an important figure in the international youth hostel movement, spoke of his dream in 1950 for youth hostels run by towns and local communities. That seems a far sighted and sustainable approach today.
Denmark is an outstanding example of this approach, where the proprietors [of youth hostels] are local authorities, independent institutions and private owners. https://www.danhostel.dk/en/about-danhostel
Flexibility
YHA shifted its ownership model for property. As the organisation became established, purchasing its own properties became the way forward.
By the end of the Second World War, many in YHA had determined that direct management and ownership of property was essential. Ownership of property gave YHA better control of standards, and ensured continuity. The number of adopted hostels dwindled from at least 104 in 1938 to less than half that number by 1950.
https://duncanmsimpsonwriting.com/2021/12/08/switching-a-future/#more-8567
Despite the change, private ownership of hostels endured. Martham in Norfolk was privately owned in the 1970s. The number of privately owned hostels increased in the 1990s, with new owners bringing property to YHA, like the youth hostel at Okehampton in Devon.
It’s a story which continues today. https://www.fountainhouseyoulgreave.co.uk/hostel
Notes:
Youth Hostel Pioneer, the biography of Jack Catchpool, is available on Amazon. https://amzn.eu/d/00XAMl5m
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