The tourism industry employs close to 250 million people worldwide. Did you know that roughly 80% of Millenials want to work for companies that care about their impacts? And 65% of them have already experienced volunteer activity?
That is why we dedicated the month of June to Our people – Caring for staff and volunteers. Without our dedicated employees, volunteers and interns hostelling would not be what it is today. An open community of like-minded people connected through their common aim of living in a world built on tolerance, mutual understanding and respect.
We believe hostelling contributes to building a more peaceful future and we take pride in working in a multicultural environment that embraces each other’s differences.
This month Slovenia has again been very successful. Most of HI Slovenia’s work is done by great volunteers who decide to spend their free time and knowledge promoting youth mobility and the development of youth travel. They contribute through participation in promotional campaigns, journalism and various interesting projects both in Slovenia and abroad. HI Slovenia’s volunteers put in 4,500 hours of their time in 2016. This year has been extremely successful. Young people are becoming more aware of the benefits of volunteering, which shows in action. In 2016 they have successfully applied for a 1-year EVS project and they are also currently hosting a volunteer from Ukraine. If you want to see some of the volunteers, meet some of them in their video.
Another star project is the Dutch Stayokay. It is a very involved and enthusiastic group of 35 colleagues with one goal, to make Stayokay more sustainable. They believe that in the long run their guests and employees make their organization and a drive for sustainability can only be successful in the longer term if it becomes a personal motivation for everyone. In this way, everybody can make a difference by showing how sustainability can be incorporated in their daily work. Their ambassadors have a very important role in gaining deeper knowledge of sustainability. They get 2 hours per week to improve the hostel’s sustainability aspects. They meet with the hostel manager at least once a month and have a small budget available.
Last but not least, there’s a star project coming from HI Iceland. The main aim of their project is to raise awareness about sustainability issues among international guests of HI Iceland, the staff of the HI hostels and the local community by maintaining the already developed sustainability policy of HI Iceland and developing new ways to increase sustainability consciousness in the daily activities of the HI hostels. In order to do so HI Iceland has designed the Green HI Hostels and run it for the last 10 years. The aim of the fund is to inspire a sense of active European citizenship and it promotes mobility within and beyond the EU’s borders.
