Last year, more than two million weary tourists with very limited means found shelter in hostels of The Youth Hostel Association (YHA, the youth hostel association). These are the best figures since the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak five years ago caused a sharp downturn in their business.
Recently, association representatives announced that they plan to close 32 hostels in England and Wales, and use the 18 million pounds from their sale to modernize the infrastructure of the two hundred hostels remaining under the association's control, making them more attractive to potential customers. The musty flophouses from Charles Hamilton's books are to be miraculously transformed into a network of new-generation budget hotels intended for hiking enthusiasts.
Such transformations will cost the hostels a large part of their color, but, in the opinion of YHA management, they will ensure their prosperity in the new century. "We want to create something more than a new network of 'budget' hotels," says Duncan Simpson, head of YHA's public relations department. "We want to give families, tourist groups, and young people the opportunity to visit places they could not afford without the services provided by our association. This is actually not so different from what we did before."
Earlier, YHA really did give the city dweller the opportunity to feel as much a legitimate element of the British countryside landscape as a provincial squire in a flat cap or a farmer on an old tractor. It achieved its goal and was invariably associated with a distinctive triangular green patch and a set of overly strict rules. The author of these lines still remembers how, after a night spent in such a hostel, he had to stand at attention while the warden—a retired army major—checked whether the guest had swept under the bed and finally allowed him to leave.
The very idea of creating youth hostels belongs to the German educator Richard Schirrmann. He was outraged by the unfavorable conditions that, in his opinion, prevailed in European cities at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and sought to make city children appreciate all the delights of being in the bosom of nature. He organized groups of schoolchildren and set off with them into nature, but these excursions had one inconvenience: the participants had to sleep on mattresses hastily spread out in the classrooms of some local school.
Schirrmann demanded that local authorities provide children with special places to sleep, which later became known as youth hostels. The first one was organized in the old castle of Burg Altena in 1909, and by 1914 their number had grown to 200. By 1928, the number of youth hostels in Germany had increased tenfold.
In Britain, by the end of the 1920s, there was also an acute need for places where one could stay overnight for a small fee, since long walking and cycling trips were immensely popular. Magazines about cycling and hiking, such as Hiking for All (Hiking for All), Ruc-Sac (Backpack) and The Passing Show (Unfolding Views), were sold at newsstands at every bus stop and railway station. In 1930, youth organizations for hiking and cycling tourism joined forces to form the youth hostel association of Great Britain - The Youth Hostel Association. Their goal was 'to help everyone, especially young people with limited means, experience new sensations and also share in the enjoyment that being in nature affords.'
In the same year, the first British youth hostel was opened in Pennant Hall in Merseyside. True, it did not last long: due to water supply problems it had to be closed. By the start of the Second World War, there were already 300 youth hostels in Britain, and the number of YHA members had reached nearly 100,000 people.
These hostels played such an important role in British rural life that US President Franklin Roosevelt, who as a child spent part of his summer holidays cycling around Britain, wrote in 1938: 'Youth hostels have become a much better education for me than attending a private school. The more you interact with different people while traveling, the better citizen you become, not only of your own country but of the whole world.'
At the beginning of the war, the premises of some hostels were requisitioned by the government, and the number of YHA members declined, but soon the popularity of these hostels rose again - largely due to their affordability: in 1951 the price of overnight accommodation was only one shilling and sixpence.
The modern history of hostels began in the 'swinging sixties.' At that time, hippies shaped the image of YHA. The hostel association avoided the obstruction that young rebels directed at almost all institutions and organizations of the time. The mods and rockers of that era were not at all interested in the cheap overnight accommodations offered by YHA, unlike hippies, who were ardent adherents of hitchhiking around the country and despised pre-war rules of behavior.
"Most youth hostels of that time did not accept guests who arrived by car," recalls David Titler, who in the 60s was an avid wanderer and now owns a business selling tourist tents. "And also almost everywhere guests were obliged to go to bed at 10 p.m., and in the morning, before leaving, to do some chores. If you ran away without doing them, as I once did - I really didn't want to wash dishes - you were put on a blacklist. Moreover, the hostels had no central heating, no carpets, and no televisions. We had to sleep in dormitories, use shared showers, and, worst of all, smoking was often forbidden in the bedrooms."
Unfortunately, the image of youth hostels formed at that time has until now scared off many travelers seeking more comfortable conditions. "The association has developed an image of grumpy old men," says Simpson. "And although we always targeted social groups such as families with small children, the truth is that we have ceased to be attractive to young people aged 16 to 24. In the old days, they would get on a bicycle in search of recreation; now they often choose an airliner."
The association undertook a "cosmetic repair." In the 1980s, it changed its logo and lifted the ban on motorists staying in hostels. Mandatory chores were abolished, and many hostels were modernized. Now YHA is closing and selling some of its least profitable establishments in favor of a radical improvement in conditions in the remaining ones: "Young people's ideas about 'budget' recreation have changed over the last 30 years; they are no longer satisfied with dormitories and shared showers; they want more personal space."
Of course, these changes cause some concern. "We will be very sorry if, as a result, the association's hostels become unaffordable for some young people with limited financial means," says Jacquetta Fewster from the walking association. However, such worries worry YHA little. According to its representatives, most of the 32 hostels to be sold opened less than four months ago. And the remaining two hundred that have been modernized will compete with "budget" hotels, where the average price per night is £15, offering the same conditions for less money.
"We will not become a network of standardized hotels. Of course, all our hostels will have common lounges, and for economic efficiency, the hostels will make joint purchases of furniture and equipment. However, all key management decisions will be made by the management of each individual hostel."
And most importantly, guests will no longer have to make do with the simplest food, wash it down with flat soda, and go to bed strictly at ten in the evening.