Hostelling Scotland is delighted to announce the completion of a refurbishment project on the reception, lounge and café bar areas of Inverness Youth Hostel, offering hostellers modern, spacious and comfortable open plan living. The project also involved the development of a flexible meeting space with AV facilities, making the hostel a great choice for any business or club looking for an affordable meeting space, with free parking and within easy reach of the city centre.
Using contemporary furnishings and colour palate the design team from Canonbury Interiors, Inverness, has transformed the reception, entrance and internal spaces into a comfortable, warm and welcoming social space perfect for meeting, working, socialising and relaxing. They have created distinct social and work areas, with ample power sockets and USB charge points, where guests can sit down with a coffee, work on their laptops; or sit and relax with friends, watching TV and enjoying a drink in the evening. The new reception area has been designed to improve the guest check-in experience.
This £40,000 renovation project follows recent development projects at Glen Nevis, Aberdeen, Loch Ossian, Achmelvich Beach, Oban and Lochranza Youth Hostels; with others at the planning and developments stage. They highlight the organisation’s commitment to a continual programme of modernisation across the network, offering sustainable, modern, high quality affordable accommodation that meets the needs of today’s hostellers as they look to explore and discover the finest locations Scotland has to offer.
Hostelling Scotland Chief Executive, Margo Paterson, said: “We pride ourselves in excellent customer service, listening to our members and guests, understanding their needs and developing our network to offer the best possible hostelling experience. The Inverness Youth Hostel refurbishment project highlights this perfectly whilst also raising the profile of hostelling in Scotland. It reflects our mission to make more of Scotland more accessible to more people than anyone else; and especially young people, providing great value, affordable, flexible and welcoming accommodation in the best locations across Scotland – to discover the real Scotland with Hostelling Scotland.”
Offering guests a range of quality private en-suite rooms and dorm accommodation, with cooked and continental breakfast available, Inverness Youth Hostel has always been an affordable business travel option. It is well-positioned for the railway station, only a short walk from the city centre, and a great option for groups and individual business travellers visiting the city. It was therefore essential that the refurbishment project included the transformation of the hostel’s meeting room to create a multi-purpose and flexible space that can double up as a conference meeting room with break out areas or private area for groups and individuals to relax in the evening and watch a film on the new 75-inch screen TV.
The Inverness Youth Hostel is licensed and guests can relax in the new lounge and café bar areas or in the newly created urban beer garden, with a glass of wine or a pint of Scottish Craft Beer. Inverness is the first hostel in the Hostelling Scotland network to offer guests Innes and Gunn beer on tap.
In line with Hostelling Scotland’s commitment to sustainable tourism and working in partnership with Scottish Water on their ‘Your Water, Your Life’ initiative, Inverness Youth Hostel is the first hostel in the Hostelling Scotland network to introduce a water refill station into its newly refurbished lounge area. The refill station calculates and displays the number of plastic bottles hostellers have saved by using the ‘Top up from the Tap’ system. In a move to reduce the use of single use plastics this initiative will be rolled out across other hostels in the network in the coming year.
Hostelling Scotland is a self-funding charitable organisation with 33 hostels located throughout Scotland, accommodating 340,000 guests every year, with a turnover of £9m and an estimated contribution to the Scottish visitor economy of £25m.
Ends
Media contact:
Paddy Cuthbert | Littlehouse Media | E: [email protected] | M: 07913 951717
For more downloadable images of the Inverness Youth Hostel Refurbishment go to https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5x0mjpxhww16wp1/AADd0ops-0IkxBm3vUL6eRwFa?dl=0
Useful links:
Hostelling Scotland – https://www.hostellingscotland.org.uk
Inverness Youth Hostel, Victoria Drive, Inverness, IV2 3QB – https://www.hostellingscotland.org.uk/hostels/inverness/
Hostelling Scotland on Twitter – https://twitter.com/hostellingscot #ourplaceisyours
Hostelling Scotland on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/hostellingscotland
Notes to Editors:
Hostelling Scotland is a self-funding charity operating a network of nearly 60 exceptional youth and affiliate hostels for the benefit of all those wishing to learn and experience what Scotland has to offer. Our unique sites provide affordable, comfortable, safe and quality-assured accommodation with a warm friendly welcome, local knowledge, activities and services for guests travelling around Scotland.
Members enjoy a range of exclusive benefits including dual membership of Hostelling International, providing access to more than 4,000 youth hostels in over 90 countries worldwide. Membership and guest overnight income supports our charitable youth programmes and the maintenance of the hostelling network.
Following a strategic review of the organisation, early in 2018, the much-loved hostelling accommodation provider is now known as Hostelling Scotland. The new identity follows on from extensive marketing research and reflects the organisation’s commitment to understanding the needs of its members, guests and employees as the modern face of Scottish Hostelling. The name also more clearly indicates its representation of Hostelling International within Scotland.
Both the changes in trading name and logo highlight a commitment to ensuring Scotland’s leading hostelling organisation remains relevant in the modern context.
Background to modernisation
Since June 2004 the not for profit, self-funding charity has gone through its most radical period of modernisation in its 89-year history. Throughout this period Hostelling Scotland’s vision has been to ensure that it remains the principle hostelling organisation of choice in Scotland through the provision of a sustainable, modern, high quality affordable accommodation network that meets the needs of today’s hostellers as they look to explore and discover the real Scotland.
Recent modernisation projects include:
The renovation of Oban Youth Hostel
The Renovation of Lochranza Youth Hostel, Isle of Arran
Development projects at Loch Ossian and Achmelvich Beach
The purchase and renovation of Portree Youth Hostel, Isle of Skye
The renovation of Aberdeen Youth Hostel
The major renovation of Glen Nevis Youth Hostel, Fort William
The renovation of Inverness Youth Hostel
The renovation of Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel (in progress)
