Hostelling International proudly presents its Annual Report for 2013. The report provides the reader with a good overview of the organisation, its mission and the highlights of the past year, as well as some interesting statistics of hostel booking habits across the globe. It reveals that Germans represent the largest source market of customers who booked through hihostels.com, closely followed by USA, France, England & Wales and Brazil.

Mikael Hansson, chief executive of Hostelling International, says: “Despite ongoing economic pressures in the travel industry, the HI brand remains a synonym of quality, affordable accommodation, with a mission, supported by National Associations and their Youth Hostels worldwide. HI's purpose is and will remain to facilitate global interactions and break down barriers.”

HI continues to evolve with development in online travel planning and booking and a relentless pursuit of Mission-based activities, such as the Sustainability Fund and the Big Blog Exchange (#bigblogX), which picked up three prestigious awards for innovation in 2013, including one from the UNWTO. The Big blog Exchange enables a selection of enthusiastic young bloggers to swap blogs and countries for 10 days and share their experiences. HI also received an Ambassador for Peace award from the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism.

Find out more by reading our electronic version online.

Note to editors:

About Hostelling International:

• Hostelling International is a non-governmental, not-for profit organisation representing 69 Member Associations and 4 Associate Organisations all over the world.

• We work closely with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

• Around 4,000 hostels within 90 countries

• 35.3 million overnights per year

• 500 million GBP estimated annual revenue within the HI network

• 3.6 million members, HI is one of the world's largest youth membership organisations and is the only global network of Youth Hostel Associations.

Please visit our website for further information about HI 

www.hihostels.com.