Hostelling International's Quality Assurance Programme

The International Youth Hostel Federation embarks upon one of its most ambitious projects: the global rollout of a quality assurance scheme, which will eventually affect and involve each and every employee in the worldwide network.

Truly excellent organizations - in tourism, travel and education as in other sectors - are measured by their ability to consistently provide outstanding services.

Since the beginning of the youth hostelling movement almost 100 years ago, the social, economic and often the political environment has changed fundamentally. The expectations of our gests towards travel and accommodation reflect this change process. Hostelling International is changing with them.

Guest expectations today are higher than they have been even ten years ago. In the case of Hostelling International, the guests, the members and the wider public are the best and probably the only relevant judges of the quality of our service. Their understanding of "quality" changes over time; their expectations are shared by numerous factors, not least the development in travel, accommodation and education.

Hostelling International, with some 4.500 establishments worldwide, is the largest provider of budget accommodation. The network spans some 80 countries and encompasses and embodies the embodies the world's variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds.

This is why the IYHF chose to develop a dynamic quality strategy, which ensures the consistency of the quality experience but also takes into account cultural differences and the necessity to preserve the diversity and uniqueness of the global hostel network.

In conjunction with a review of the IYHF's 'Assured Hostel Standards and Practices Scheme' the objective is to establish routine workflows, allowing hostels' staff to run an overall smoother operation, save money and resources to ensure a consistently high quality output.

Better and more economically achieved results lead to higher guest and staff satisfaction. The success of the Hostelling International's Quality Assurance Programme implementation requires an organization at its best.

The IYHF launched the "Quality Assurance Pilot Programme" in April 2004. Fourteen hostels from different National YHAs were chosen to take part in it and among them the hostel "All Seasons" from Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Hostel "All Seasons" is the first hostel in Russia to be awarded the HI-Quality Certificate that was presented to the hostel at the beginning of June 2005 after a successful final audit made by Hartmut Finke, the IYHF Auditor. Hartmut Finke conducted the final audit in the presence of Alexandra Luttseva, hostel manager, the entire hostel's staff and Yulia Zubareva, YHAR President. The Auditor congratulates the hostel's team to their success in implementation of the Pilot Project led to higher guest and staff satisfaction. Alexandra Luttseva, who ran the mentioned above Pilot project, was admitted as National Quality Coordinator.

The IYHF is planning continuation of the QA Programme and involvement in it more number of national hostels worldwide.