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Inverness Youth Hostel gets a fresh new look

Hostelling Scotland has completed the refurbishment project on the reception, lounge and café bar areas of Inverness Youth Hostel.

It now offers 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.

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