Marella's hostel a world eco-winner

A hostel in Omagh, Co Tyrone, run by Kilcullen-born Marella Fyffe, has been named as one of the world’s Top Ten Eco-Hostels.

The commendation for the Omagh Hostel at Glenhordial Farm, from the online ‘bible’ of hostelling, HostelWorld.Com, puts the operation in the same league as top eco-hostels in Hawaii, Iceland, Singapore, the US and Britain.

Indeed, no less than three hostels on the island of Ireland are in this year’s list, which was issued by HostelWorld.Com in conjunction with Earth Day. The others are the Cnocnafeola Cultural & Residential Centre in the Mourne Mountains, Sleepzone in Connemara, and Gyreum in Sligo.

Marella Fyffe, a daughter of the late Tom and Carmel Byrne in Kilcullen, set up the Omagh Hostel 18 years ago with her husband Bill, as an adjunct to a landscape gardening business. They moved it into the eco-hostel stream about four years ago.

“It was partly because Omagh is off the beaten track and isn’t exactly a place where people come to on their holidays,” Marella recalls. “I needed some form of niche product that would attract people to the area for more than accommodation.”

Apart from that, as somebody very interested in outdoor pursuits herself, the concept fitted in with Marella’s own ethos. The work on the hostel over the last few years has included extensive recycling, composting and a green purchasing policy, and ranges to the use of low energy lighting and even environmentally friendly reed beds.

Individual aspects of the programme include using 'green' electricity via Eco Energy NIE, reusing and reduction in packaging from suppliers, and investment in a highly efficient biomass central heating boiler.

“That last is helped by the fact that in the landscaping business, there is a considerable amount of green waste, which previously we had to pay for to dispose of the tiphead,” Marella notes. “Now we have our own way of using it.”

CO2 output for the hostel has been measured to be about 16.5 tonnes per year, which is about half the norm in the UK. The Fyffes plant at least 22 trees per year as part of their programme to reduce this even further.

Organic vegetables and fruit grown at the hostel and in the surrounding area are used.

“We also encourage our guests to arrive by bus, offering a free pick up and leave back to the local bus station and we have a locked security area for bicycles.”

The shift to an eco emphasis has brought a new type of traveller to the Omagh Hostel. “It definitely has brought extra business to us, a different clientele who have an interest in ecology, angling, hill-walking and folklore. The come here because they see us as an example of good practice.”

That has also been recognised by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, who just recently told Marella that the hostel is to be showcased by them as an example of how to develop sustainable eco-tourism.

Last year the hostel was the first one in NI to be awarded the prestigious EU Flower Ecolabel in the tourist accommodation category. It also received the Omagh District Council Award for Biodiversity.