When you think of hostels, what comes to mind? If, like many people, you’ve stayed in one of them in your student days, you probably have memories of cold bunk beds, communal showers and noisy students. But things have come a long way since those days, and they now offer all different types of amenities and services to make the experience more comfortable and memorable. Many more people are now choosing to stay in hostels instead of budget hotels or holiday accommodations like Airbnb.
So what’s the reason behind this shift? In addition to more investment going into the hostels market, organisations like YHA (Youth Hostels Associations, England and Wales) in the UK are helping to change the perception of hostel accommodation. The leading social enterprise has been at the forefront of the movement to make travel accessible to all, especially young people.
YHA’s Digital Media Executive, Jack Mellors, spoke with us at The PhotoShelter Summit, where he explained their work; to break previous preconceptions around hostelling, and how they use impactful visual storytelling to promote their mission.
Jack said: “We’re also a charity. So the charity side of it is ingrained into everything we do. And the main thing that we try and do within the charity is to provide people (especially young people of limited means) access to the outdoors and to nature, because we believe that everybody should be able to experience the outdoors and nature.”
Telling YHA’s Story Through Video
In his role at the YHA, Jack wears many hats. In addition to being responsible for YHA’s digital marketing strategy, Jack is their in-house photographer, videographer, and digital asset management expert. Talk about a Jack-of-all-trades!
He explained that being able to tell YHA’s story authentically through video is a crucial part of YHA’s digital marketing strategy, and it all comes down to capturing the power of a moment. This could be anything, like the moment a child goes outdoors, into nature, or into one of their hostels for the very first time. It could be the first time that a group of students who have been subsidised are able to spend time together in nature learning and building themselves up as people.
To be able to get these moments to come through as part of the greater story, Jack follows four key components:
- People: When creating videos, it’s all about capturing the moment of people experiencing nature and how YHA helps. Some of the people that YHA works with, children in particular, have never ventured very far from their homes or experienced certain outdoor activities. YHA had recently added a new hostel venue to their network, Chester Trafford Hall, and they invited a group of subsidised school children to spend a day at the venue and explore the surrounding countryside. Being able to capture that moment of joy of the children enjoying the experience from start to finish created a story that is authentic and resonates with YHA’s audiences.
- Place: With Chester Trafford Hall being a new addition to the YHA network, Jack explained that it was crucial to promote the venue as part of the video portion of the larger story, and how it fit into YHA’s mission of making travel accessible to all. He said: “It was really important to capture this because we want to show the reasons why this was a great addition to our network.”
- Purpose: The purpose of the video defines the style of it. In the case of the video for their Chester Trafford Hall venue, the purpose was to really promote and sell it as an affordable destination for everyone, especially young people, to stay and have fun with the group activities available. To get insights into why people should visit and stay at the venue, YHA spoke to the kids specifically and got their views on the day, capturing their genuine reactions on camera!
- Plot: Having established the previous three components, the plot comes together as a result. Jack explained that asking questions to the group like ‘How have you found the day?’ ‘What’s been your favourite part?’ ‘What are you going to take home to tell your parents?’ Then adding insightful information and some perspectives from the teachers at school helps build the video. It’s people’s opinions about the place they stay at that will help tell the complete story.
Watch the clip below where Jack explains the thinking behind these four different storytelling components:
How Social Media is Changing the Way You Tell Your Story
Some key elements that YHA considers as part of their storytelling strategy are how the stories will be promoted and shared with audiences, and how they’re formatted. With content marketing and social media changing at a rapid pace, Jack explained that as an organisation they’ve also had to change and adapt to new digital marketing trends, especially on social media.
Video is taking over all social media platforms, with Instagram using Reels, TikTok being a video-only platform, and YouTube pushing Shorts. YHA is experimenting with two types of video formats: long-form and short-form.
Long-form content is used for videos like the one described above to promote the Chester Trafford Hall venue. Whereas short-form videos are ideal for a younger audience, which is the new type of audience YHA is trying to reach. However, these types of videos are more challenging to create, as you’re trying to cram a story into 15 to 60 seconds.
Jack said: “We are a youth charity so one of the things that we need to understand is how we cater to those new audiences.”
When creating short-form videos, it’s all about making those first few seconds really count by finding something that will draw people in. One of the ways YHA tries to do this is by showcasing a beautiful landscape – either using an aerial drone shot, or views of the valleys, or the coastline – something that’s eye-catching to encourage people to want to stay or find out more. They also use interviews of people talking about their experiences, highlighting a specific part that’s really fun and interesting.
Here’s a great example of a short-form video from YHA’s YouTube Shorts playlist, where the children talk about their experiences staying at Chester Trafford Hall.
If you’re considering creating short-form videos as part of your content strategy, Jack shared these tips with us:
- Add eye-catching content at the start, the first few seconds count
- Play with loops
- Consider a Shorts specific channel like YouTube
- Adapt previous content/repurpose
- Create a backlog of content
- Link to long-form content
- Consider your new audience
- Don’t alienate your existing audience
It’s clear that the hostel industry has transformed in the last few years and that visual content, especially video, is a key driver for changing perceptions around hostel accommodation. We’re excited to see how the industry will continue to evolve and how visual storytelling and DAM will support it in the coming years to help make travel accessible (and intriguing!) to all.
If you’d like to learn more about how to incorporate a DAM as part of your visual storytelling strategy and streamline your creative workflow, we’d love to hear from you!