Scottish Hostels
Scotland
Scotland
Scottish Hostels is a Membership Association of independently owned hostels, with over 100 hostels located all over Scotland, from the Highlands and Islands to its vibrant cities. Each one of the hostels is unique, providing excellent value and hospitality from its independent owners. The essence of hostelling is to provide safe, clean, comfortable, friendly accommodation which has shared facilities making it affordable. Guests can therefore cook their own meals and share the living spaces with other travellers and holiday makers.
Grey Nickel was involved in four aspects of the business. Primarily we created a sales and marketing strategy to drive sales to the individual hostels. A secondary remit was to build the number of hostels in the group by recruiting new members. Grey Nickel supported Scottish Hostels in a complete rebrand, including a new website. We created new content by organising a campaign based on influencer visits to all areas of Scotland with hostels. Finally and crucially, Grey Nickel supported members to add value to their subscription, linking the hostel owners together, offering advice and communicating on a regular basis about industry trends.
Hostelling is an affordable holiday, but that doesn’t mean poor quality. Many of SIH’s hostels are quality assured by Visit Scotland and for those that are not SIH has introduced their own guest review system so the client can decide what is the right accommodation.
Hostelling is ideal for older people. SIH is not “youth hostelling” – SIH has a huge percentage of older guests who love the freedom, authenticity, sociability and affordability of hostelling.
Many of SIH’s hostels offer exclusive use for groups of all sizes, from 6 to 60 people – from reunions to anniversary celebrations offering an alternative to a large lodge or castle at a price for all the family’s pockets
Nicky’s ability to work on both sides of the organisation is invaluable. Working with a volunteer board can be challenging, however she has reviewed and reset the organisation on a path that will see us grow and succeed for years to come.
