Hostel Uniforms

I attended a meeting of a dozen or so hostel owners today and the topic of the lunchbreak was this thread about hostel uniforms.

Welcome, hostel owners :)

This is my 1000th post. Josh, could you change my title to "Forum Guru, VC, DSO, MC", please? :)

Done :)

could you change my title to "Forum Guru, VC, DSO, MC", please? :)

Forum Guru, Very Cool, Damn Special Oracle, Master of Ceremonies, but where's the Bar?

They certainly seemed to specialise in ill fitting shirts. We'd often order a shirt for the new assistants in medium, but all that ever came was XXL. As usual I think the ordering had gone astray. I remember Derek well, though never worked for him. As far as I know he was made redundant last year when they got rid of all the residential managers. Or they tried to ship him off to Kendoon or something. I'm not sure. Pat of course has also gone too now they've sold Kyleakin.

Apparently Kyleakin wasn't sold due to poor visitor numbers but due to the fabric of the building according to the CEO. Or in reality the fact they have no business plan except to sell off 5 or 6 hostels every 4 or 5 years to keep themselves afloat. Gives them about 20 years before they're reduced to a few city hostels.

I believe Kyleakin main building has been sold to the local housing association to be turned into low cost flats. And the annex has been sold to Saucy Mary's to extend the number of beds they have. So much for the building falling down - they obviously see that they can make a go of it. The fact that place was sold was a disgrace - 5 or 6 years ago it was doing 20000 bednights, but due to mismanagement on many levels it was doing less that 13000 before they sold it. Properly run and promoted it should have been a cash cow. Armadale was sold for £220000 (details here.
What is going to happen to it I'm not sure - last I saw of it it was grey cold and empty. Hard to see that place having much use besides a hostel, although you never know.

Not being in Scotland it's hard to keep track of what's going on and the SYHA movements have been pretty hard to figure out - ie, why sell Kyleakin, which (yes, if properly managed) was a pretty good cash cow, and keep Broadford afloat - every time I've ever been there it's been empty...and Broadford is hardly the backpacker hub of Skye.

Wee bit sad that they're getting rid of the relics...nothing like having a 'warden' threatening to make you sleep on the street because you can't find your membership card and refuse to pay the extra pounds...although must admit it's possibly not all bad - Kyleakin hostel could be a bit Jerry Springer at times...:p

The Jerry Springer comparison is funny -- it fits a couple of hostels I worked at :D

And that was just the staff!