a&o Hostels Idea: Take 'Dirty, Ugly' Buildings, Make Them Sustainable
Photo Caption: a&o's property in Berlin Friedrichshain was former screw-and-spring factory and also the chain's very first hostel. Source: a&o Hostels
Skift Take
a&o is part of the hospitality industry that honors refuse, repurpose, reduce as the new slogan in achieving its net-zero goal. And giving new life to old buildings on the way.
One was an old dairy factory in Stuttgart. Another, an old bread factory in Salzburg. In Cologne, there’s also a former headquarters of German federal intelligence. Now – they are all a&o hostels. You can stay at one for about 43 dollars a day.
“We walk around cities and look around for dirty, ugly buildings,” said Oliver Winter, founder and chief executive officer at a&o hostels. “Or sometimes, we approach brokers of office spaces and we say we need a ugly and dirty one — 50 percent of our properties we found by ourselves,” he said.
Founded in 2000, Berlin-based a&o hostels operates 40 hostels in 25 cities in Europe, the United Kingdom and in Israel. The chain’s target audience is backpackers as well as solo travelers, families, school groups and clubs. A&o took the net zero pledge, aspiring to be Europe's "zero-em
