{"id":6022,"date":"2014-01-06T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T06:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=6022"},"modified":"2021-06-18T12:52:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T04:52:30","slug":"hostels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2014\/01\/hostels\/","title":{"rendered":"Room for More and Better Hostel Rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Travellers have limited options for decent budget accommodation in Hong Kong<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reporters: Yoyo Chan, Rachel Cheung, Sharon Lee<\/p>\n<p>Editors: Caleb Ho, Stephanie Cheng<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/82262015\" height=\"375\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the number of visitors staying overnight in Hong Kong rose by 15.7 per cent in 2013, compared with 2012. The hotel room occupancy rate of Hong Kong reached 86 per cent in 2013, exceeding that of other popular tourists\u2019 cities such as New York, Paris and Singapore. Many are worried that the influx of tourists exceeds the city\u2019s capacity to accommodate them.<\/p>\n<p>Homestays have become increasingly popular worldwide but residential buildings in Hong Kong cannot be rented out for non-domestic use, so they are illegal here. The owner of a flat being used as a homestay can be punished by a fine of HKD 200,000 and imprisonment for two years if convicted.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, more than 1000 home owners in Hong Kong have offered their apartments on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\/\">https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\/<\/a> , a popular United States based website for tourists to book accommodation in cities around the world. The average price is around HKD 800 per night. Even though the rentals are offered without any license, users can assess their quality through users\u2019 reviews.<\/p>\n<p>Another option for budget travelers is youth hostels. <i>Varsity<\/i> visited three youth hostels operated by the Youth Hostel Association (YHA) in Hong Kong, Sze Lok Yuen Hostel in Tai Mo Shan, Jockey Club Mt. Davis Youth Hostel in Pok Fu Lam and Bradbury Jockey Club Youth Hostel in Tai Mei Tuk. The three hostels were built in the early 1980s, but only one, the Jockey Club Mount Davis Youth Hostel has been renovated. Facilities at the hostels visited were rather basic, with no Wi-fi connection or digital network coverage.<\/p>\n<p>The YHA says it is addressing these issues but it takes considerable time and a lot of money to do so.<\/p>\n<p>With growing needs for accommodation, the government needs to plan ahead to make sure the expected demand is met.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ever increasing number of visitors to Hong Kong means the demand for accommodation keeps going up, yet hotel accommodation in Hong Kong is notoriously expensive. Youth hostels could provide a decent, safe and reasonably-priced alternative for those who want to experience Hong Kong but most of them are currently in remote areas and serve hikers. Is there room for more hostels in easily accessed areas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,1791],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-6022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-focus","category-multimedia","category-multimedia-january-2014","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6051,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022\/revisions\/6051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}