ElaineB wrote: ↑15 May 2023, 8:56pm
Sadly the YHA had to adapt to compete with the Premier Inns and Travel Lodges. The rooms are very expensive now, as a solo cyclist I recently booked a four bedded room with en-suite all for myself at £50 per night, just for the room. The dormitory beds used to be £13 per night but quite a lot of Yha’s don’t offer them now.
Charging more than Premier Inn and Travelodge yet making less money per unit and being less convenient for many doesn't seem like competing very well.
While YHA's charitable aim still includes promoting health, their current 10-year strategy to 2030 includes no support for cycling and their strategic quantifiable measurements include nothing about health or physical activity. Only number of people, number of young people and whether they access nature, outdoors, culture and heritage while staying there. That's all. The claims about health are very woolly, like either the strategy authors don't really see how they can promote health in any direct ways or they've been told not to let it get in the way of visitor numbers and income.
Maybe they'll start to give a toss about sustainable and active travel after 2030.
[...] now you can book on bookings.com, [...]
Well, you can, but then you're encouraging a business which has been
found misleading customers several times and continued doing bad things to both customers and suppliers. Other booking sites that haven't are available.