Or at least that’s what they did when I was travelling around Europe. Agreed, the goal of travelling is not to hole up inside a youth hostel, but there were one or two days when I was sick with a temperature and would really rather have stayed in, it being late winter. IIRC, even if you merely want to return to the hostel to retrieve a forgotten camera, or whatever, you can’t. What’s up with all that?
I hate to WAG as the first reply to a GQ, but here are some thoughts:[ul][li]They need to make absolutely clear there is no possibility of someone claiming the facility as a residence.[/li][li]They need to clean up.[/li]They just don’t like you. (Well, I mean they are a youth hostile aren’t they? :D)[/ul]
First of all, not all of them do – most of the independent backpacker places have no curfew or lockout, although the older HI-affiliated hostels usually do.
Lockouts make things easier on the staff – they can come into the rooms, do the cleaning, and change the sheets without having to deal with a bunch of crabby backpackers who want to sleep all day, and they get a few hours to take care of paperwork and business matters in general when they’re not constantly on call. Reception at a hostel is a tough job. Imagine trying to deal with a busload of Koreans who don’t speak English, a jangling telephone, three people trying to buy laundry detergent, somebody else complaining the only washing machine is broken, an in-box full of e-mails, and a school group raising holy hell. Right, well, that’s a good day. A bad day is when your only assistant has disappeared with the contents of the cash box. No wonder they want a few hours off.
The lockout also helps keep the place secure; at least you know your camera will still be in the room when you get back if nobody else can get in there either.
Sorry, I just realized that last post sounded rather snippy – nothing personal, I’m sure you were a model hosteler. Just wanted to point out that the demands on employees are huge, and that getting the guests out of the way for a few hours can give them some much-needed down time.
In the early '80s I worked at a non-HI affliliated hostel (the Hotel Josef in Tel Aviv, just in case anyone knows it) and Fretful Porpentine has pretty much hit the nail on the head. It’s just about impossible to clean the place, reconcile the cash, get the food/beer/pop set up, etc. when you’ve got two people sleeping in this room, one guy wanting coffee over here, another wanting a sandwich there, this woman needing directions to some local attraction, and someone else complaining about the dirty toilets.
Hostels, of course, tend to be minimally staffed, so there’s just no extra bodies to do all those things. Easier just to boot everyone out and get everything done at one time.
I can remember people asking that exact question of me periodically at the Josef (oddly enough, only Americans ever seemed to ask) and my stock answer became, “Why would you fly all the way over here and then sit in a hostel? Go see some god-damned sights already.”