A resolution recognizing Hostelling International USA for 75 years of service to intercultural understanding and to youth travel.

Whereas travel promotes awareness and knowledge of peoples, places, and cultures;

Whereas hostelling is educational travel, local and global, using hostels and other programs to facilitate interaction among travelers and with local communities;

Whereas hostels are simple, safe, shared accommodations that promote community and cooperation among users and introduce young people of limited means to travel;

Whereas Hostelling International USA (HI–USA) is a nonprofit educational organization established in 1934 as American Youth Hostels to promote hostelling in the United States;

Whereas, since its founding, HI–USA has provided in its hostels more than 22,000,000 overnight stays to visitors from the United States and more than 150 countries worldwide;

Whereas today HI–USA has a network of 70 hostels in areas of cultural, historic, and recreational interest, often in partnership with public, private, and other nonprofit organizations, that annually hosts nearly 1,000,000 overnights stays by both domestic and foreign travelers;

Whereas HI–USA today offers programs through its hostels and local chapters that promote the appreciation of local culture and environment, while facilitating the discovery of both world and self, to more than 65,000 participants annually; and

Whereas HI–USA has made a unique and notable contribution to intercultural understanding in the United States and worldwide, especially among youth: Now, therefore, be it