They once symbolised Britain's love affair with the Great Outdoors, but it seems the future of youth hostels is now uncertain. Nick Morrison looks at how a rite of passage for millions is responding to the challenge of catering for today's tourists

EVEN when set against their popular image - of everyone mucking in, of dormitory beds and of communal living - the youth hostel at Lockton was pretty basic. It may have had a fantastic location, near Pickering on the edge of the North York Moors, but it also had outside toilets and only one shower.

A £300,000 refurbishment later, and Lockton became Britain's first eco-friendly hostel. Solar panels helped heat the water, rainwater was harvested to flush the toilets, a sedum roof provided both insulation and a habitat for wildlife, the remainder of the insulation was sheep's wool. Even the paint was organic.

"We were very basic before and people want a little bit more than that now," says manager Jenny Bentley. "We've got three more showers, three toilets and we're carpeted throughout."

As well as the environmental benefits, Lockton's elevation into a four star hostel has had its own rewards. From about 2,000 overnight visits a year, since it reopened last March it has had about 3,500 visits. But not every hostel has fared so well.

On Tuesday the Youth Hostel Association (YHA), which runs 227 hostels in England and Wales, announced another raft of closures, including Keld in Swaledale. This comes just three years after it shut an earlier batch, including Aysgarth in North Yorkshire.

The decision has raised questions over the future of the youth hostel movement. The YHA announced last year that it had debts of £35m and that 39 of its hostels, almost one in six, was running at a loss, with another 39 only just breaking even.

To some this suggested that youth hostels were increasingly out of step with the demands of the modern tourist, much less modern youth. Who now wanted to share a dormitory when they could have a room of their own? Who wanted to queue for a rickety shower when they could have en suite? Who wanted to be told they had to clean the toilets before they could leave?

Budget hotels and cheap flights made holidays abroad more accessible to people who would otherwise have found their purse could only stretch to a hostel, and improved living standards had raised people's expectations, and lowered their tolerance level. On top of this, the appeal of the countryside seemed to be waning, with fewer people up for the challenge of the Pennine Way or the Coast to Coast walks.

David Andrews, chief executive of Yorkshire Tourist Board, sympathises with the plight of the YHA. "The tourism industry is extremely competitive and youth hostels are competing with an increasing number of budget accommodations," he says.

But it would be a mistake to think that youth hostels had no place in the modern world, according to Simon Ainley, YHA regional manager for Yorkshire and the North-East. Indeed, they are as needed now as they were when the YHA was set up more than 75 years ago. The difference is that some of them, like Lockton, may need to adapt to survive.

"They are absolutely for the 21st century," he says. "There is still lots of deprivation and people who can't afford to go on budget airlines, and there are people living in urban areas who would never get to experience the countryside.

"The YHA is all about providing opportunities for those people to get out and maybe have a life-changing experience and maybe expand their personal horizons through travel."

Far from wanting to sit on a beach drinking beer in Magaluf, he says many young people are keen to experience the outdoors, whether it's mountain biking, abseiling or rock-climbing. "As people get more and more free time, I think they like to do a little bit of everything," he adds.

"They might want a weekend in Prague drinking cheap beer, but they might also want a weekend in the Dales."

He says unlike the closures of three years ago, primarily the result of a need to save cash after the loss of business caused by the foot-and-mouth epidemic, this week's announcement is part of a ten-year strategy to revitalise the youth hostel movement.

A key strand of this, perhaps surprisingly given its name and controversially given the age of many of its staunchest supporters, is to focus attention on young people.

"We are open to all, we have youth hostellers in their 80s, but we're going to focus all our attention, all our marketing effort, on developing youth hostels so they're for young people, because that is the future of the organisation," Mr Ainley says.

"We're not going to exclude people who've used youth hostels all their lives but we are going to focus on young people." Part of this approach is to close hostels in locations where young people say they don't want to go, with Keld in this category. "It all hinges on being available for young people and asking them where they want to be," he adds.

He points to hostels such as Grinton Park, just 12 miles from Keld, as an example of the direction the movement is going: a popular location, good facilities and popular with a range of visitors, including families and school groups. The YHA has also been moving into more upmarket accommodation - the hostel in Oxford has a bar and caf - and is looking at opening new ones in cities, including Durham and Newcastle.

The tourist board's Mr Andrews sees this diversity - bars in Oxford and eco-hostels in North Yorkshire - as key to the movement's future. "The challenge youth hostels face today is to continually reposition and reinvent themselves to attract new markets and offer a range of different experiences to meet consumer demand," he says.

"Lockton is a case in point, being the YHA's first Green Beacon youth hostel, which reduces the impact on the local environment."

There are grounds for believing the strategy is working. Last year, Yorkshire's hostels recorded their best year for six years, with around 185,000 overnight stays. And while some hostels are closing, others are expanding. The hostel in Whitby will soon be moving to a new building, also near the abbey, doubling its capacity.

But while the YHA is happy to go upmarket, and to become more environmentally-friendly to widen its appeal, some things will stay the same. "The most successful ones are in good locations and have the right ambience," says Mr Ainley. "It is not all about en suite and fine wines.

"We will always have the communal atmosphere, because that is the crux of the YHA. It has got to be affordable and it has got to be for young people and it has got to be a place where people can meet."

Back at Lockton, Jenny Bentley is in no doubt that going green helped ensure the hostel has a future. "We had to do something, otherwise I'm sure we could have been on the list for closure," she says. The daily chore may have gone, but there may be a future yet for our youth hostels.