tourism
Youth hostels rely on the return of school classes
After the Corona outbreak, the number of overnight stays in youth hostels rose again slightly. Photo: Friso Gentsch/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
German youth hostels are also suffering from the corona pandemic. The drop in guests was striking. Now the youth hostel association is hoping for the return of the most important target group.
The 422 youth hostels in Germany recorded around 3.9 million overnight stays last year.
As the German Youth Hostel Association (DJH) informed in its balance sheet for 2021, this was around 300,000 more than in the first year, 2020, which was shaped by the corona pandemic before the pandemic in 2019, when there were 9.8 million overnight stays, one is still a long way off, said DJH general manager Julian Schmitz.
For this year, the association, which has 2.3 million members, expects a bit of normality again. Despite the two pandemic years, only four percent of the members were lost in 2021. “We had fewer resignations than ever before. We are very happy about that,” said co-managing director Oliver Peters. The number of bookings and reservations increased noticeably in the first months of 2022.
At the top of the DJH’s agenda is the return of the most important target group, the school classes. “We are still experiencing a positive trend among families,” said Schmitz. “But we finally want to get school classes in our houses excited about important topics such as sustainability, environmental protection, sport, culture or social learning and enable freedom.”
Recently, special programs for families, groups and clubs have also helped financially. The federal government made around two million euros available to the youth hostels for the years 2021 and 2022. Nevertheless, last year 10 to 15 houses had to give up for economic reasons. The lack of staff also made life difficult for the youth hostels. “That’s a big problem,” said Schmitz. Therefore, they now want to increasingly recruit workers.
A major and important concern for the youth hostels is to offer people fleeing Ukraine shelter and security. Youth hostels stand for “social cohesion” even in times of crisis, it said. In 2021, the hostels were “important social partners” in overcoming the pandemic. When supporting adolescents and families, they are “safe places where values such as cosmopolitanism and international understanding, regardless of culture, religion or social background, are lived anew every day – also and especially in times of crisis,” says Schmitz. Vulnerable people from Ukraine are currently accommodated in 45 to 50 youth hostels.