How G Adventures and Hostelworld are changing face of youth travel

Hostels have long been a cornerstone of the tourism eco-system, making travel accessible and affordable, and fostering a sense of community and camaraderie amongst young people keen to explore together. It’s this sense of community and joint passion for innovation that has led Hostelworld and G Adventures to join forces to bring a new style of travel to 18 to 35-year-olds – Roamies.

This new collaboration launches with a collection of 38 tours in 15 countries staying across more than 50 hostels, and sees travellers exploring iconic destinations with the world’s hottest hostels as their home-base – to both hang out and kick-start adventures. Tours start to depart on May 08, 2022 and all are available to book from today (December 08, 2021), with between 16 and 24 travellers sharing experiences on each departure. The Roamies collection is the start of a longer-term partnership that will see more tours being added across further locations.

Roamies captures the free-spirited nature of adventure travel and combines it with the inherently social side of hostels. The collection brings independently-minded travellers together to explore the world on tours between five and 34 days duration, with maximum freedom and flexibility. Extra free time, with optional activities available to book, has been built in, with all trips having the support of an expert chief experience officer (CEO) every step of the way.

G Adventures’ founder, Bruce Poon Tip, says the traveller has changed following the pandemic, and the partnership was born out of the desire to create something entirely new for younger travellers, many of whom have been deprived of the opportunity to travel over the past 20 months.

“We’ve always had great respect for Hostelworld – it’s an amazing company with an incredible commitment to the advancement of travel, a quality we appreciate and share. The pandemic gave us the opportunity to act like a start-up again. As we learned more about Hostelworld’s business, we realised there was an opportunity to create something special by bringing our brands together to create the perfect mix of backpacking and organised travel. Together we’re creating a new style of travel for our customers that will allow them to have a better travel experience and support our model of community tourism, which is based on investing in as many local and small businesses as possible. There is no better representation of that than in the hostel market, of which many are family-run businesses,” says Poon Tip.

Gary Morrison, chief executive officer of Hostelworld Group, said the partnership presented an exciting opportunity to create a new type of backpacking adventure for young travellers. “Our mission is to help hostellers meet other travellers they want to hang out with while travelling, so partnering with G Adventures to offer a combination of hostelling and adventure travel made absolute sense. When young people travel, they want to do more than just see places – they want to make meaningful connections and have new experiences that positively change their perspective on themselves and the world.”