Curious how a hostel can help solve your community’s problems such as unemployment or lack of community social spaces? Need to know how to transform local businesses’ skepticism or even hostility towards your project into enthusiastic cooperation? Then join Hostel Hub and the Community Ownership Support Service for this 2-day workshop in Dunkeld where you’ll learn these techniques as well as essential hostel start-up insider...

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Client problem The North East Scotland Preservation Trust and Scottish Traditional Boat Festival charity needed to know whether it would be financially viable to develop an old sail loft into a bunkhouse. They had done extensive work already with an architect, but were unsure whether the layout was the best option for maximising profits. They also lacked the know-how to assess whether their occupancy estimates were realistic. How we helped We...

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The company who who will supply Northlink ferry its coffee, Caber Coffee, are thinking of giving us money. Turns out they donate a percentage of their profits to social enterprises, and in partnership with Northlink, they want to donate funds to Orkney and Shetland social enterprises. Great news. But in thinking over what we would use the funds for, we realised that our single biggest expenses is travel. Getting from Orkney to rural communities...

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It’s been a fantastic week. We have won a grant from UnLtd to legally incorporate as a social enterprise, and we’ve won our first contract to work with the community of Portsoy, Aberdeenshire. After months of setting up, getting the word out about what we do, we’re getting stuck in with the fun part: advising communities on how to set up a bunkhouse that’s going to bring in much-needed income and jobs. Malcolm did a...

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A new generation of hostels Modern hostels don’t have to compromise on quality, comfort or community. These photos are from just two of the new generation of high-quality, affordable hostels throughout the world (pictures courtesy of Nomads Hostel Queenstown and Circus Hostel Berlin). The Hostel Hunt campaign We’re on a mission to make hostels desirable to run as community-owned businesses and have been challenged to find our...

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All this celebrating Queen Elizabeth, the sunshine and the Olympic torch relay has got me pretty nostalgic for the old ways. Which gets me to thinking about how hostels used to be when I was growing up. Thankfully they have moved on a lot since those days but I look back with fondness at a few eccentric and questionable features of hostel life: Top of the list has to be Sheet Sleeping Bags. When pronounced with a certain foreign accent the first...

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