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Cheap beds hard to find as hostels grow costly
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When Wang Kaiping called six Hangzhou youth hostels on Saturday to find an inexpensive bed for a friend visiting this week, she got the same reply every time: “No beds left.”
Wang discovered that many of the city’s youth hostels offer relatively few of the cheap beds that are the hallmark of hostels the world over. Instead, there are more and more accommodations that are just like hotel rooms, and they aren’t cheap.
Hostel owner Zhang Ting says she “had to make my youth hostel a boutique facility as soon as I started the business.”
Her Blue Lotus Youth Hostel opened two years ago in Qingzhiwu block near Hangzhou Botanical Garden. “It is a trend, because of increasing building rents and the new market demand,” she says.
The hostel installed expensive Toto bathroom fixtures and bought mattresses that each cost over 10,000 yuan (US$1,634) for rooms priced at more than 300 yuan per day.
There are more than 70 youth hostels in this tourist city, according to the Hangzhou Administration of Industry and Commerce, and most are in such scenic blocks as Siyanjing, Baile Bridge, Qingzhiwu and Yuhuang Hill.
As the hostel business has been growing and changing, local property owners have raised rents for the buildings that hostels occupy from about 100,000 a decade ago to two, three or even four times that amount in scenic areas.
Jiangnanyi Youth Hostel/Restaurant, the first youth hostel in Siyanjing block, closed last year, at the end of a 10-year lease, because the building owner intended to triple the rent. Jiangnanyi still has two restaurants in Hangzhou, but it got out of the hostel business.
Some of the more traditional youth hostels are fleeing to the suburbs to stay in business.
Many hostel owners in urban and scenic areas also say they have to provide upgraded décor and services in order to compete in the market, and those costs are high.
“The customers of the youth hostel vary in recent years,” says Shen Xinxin, manager of 4eyes Youth Hostel. “The percentage of backpackers is falling, and more white-collar workers, business executives and also family tourists come.
“These customers’ requirements are higher. They want free Wi-Fi, better bedding and nice baths, which increase the cost,” Shen says.
Bars, cafés, restaurants and even conference rooms can be found at some of the city’s youth hostels. Some show films or hold art exhibitions.
Hostel owners say they can’t recover their costs in a timely fashion by selling dormitory beds for a few dozen yuan each.
“To sell that bed, the profit would be only 10 yuan if utility, cleaning and laundry bills are taken out,” says a youth hostel owner who declines to be identified. He is now selling his business because he hasn’t been able to make ends meet.
According to the Chinese website of the International Youth Hostel Federation, a youth hostel should have at least a one-to-one ratio between private room beds and dorm beds, but that standard is met by few youth hostels in Hangzhou.
Fiona Youth Hostel has 24 beds in dorms and 60 private rooms; Hangzhou YMCA Youth Hostel has 18 beds in dorms and 23 private rooms.
Hangzhou 4eyes Youth Hostel has 60 beds in six dorms and more than 50 standard rooms. However, manager Shen says, “In recent years, we have added standard rooms and king-size rooms, but no dorms.”
Some even don’t have any dorm beds. Mandolin Youth Hostel has eight rooms priced from 199 to 350 yuan a night; Lingyin Ferry Youth Hostel has 15 rooms priced from 125 to 300 yuan, and Teelyseen Youth Hostel offers 28 rooms from 360 to 780 yuan.
Higher-priced rooms are paying off for hostels — almost every youth hostel is fully occupied during holidays. And many raise their rates during holidays and weekends.
Last year, the youth hostels in Siyanjing block had a combined total number of 120,000 guests, while those in Qingzhiwu had 300,000, according to the Hangzhou Administration of Industry and Commerce.
As costs and competition have risen, more traditional youth hostels are starting to open in suburban Hangzhou areas such as Deqign, Fuyang and Tonglu, according to officials.
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