He has lived for Swiss Youth Hostels for 60 years

We meet Jack Kern on a cloudy late sum­mer day at Zurich Youth Hos­tel. This place has a spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for him. He had his office here for 25 years. He has been active­ly involved with Swiss Youth Hos­tels for 60 years. With a beam­ing smile and a fold­er full of mem­o­ries, he sits at the table in the lob­by.

Despite his grand age of 88, he is still fit. He trav­elled by bus because the native of Zurich lives not far from the hos­tel in the Woll­ishofen dis­trict. The only thing he finds more and more dif­fi­cult is walk­ing.

From scouts to Youth Hostels

As a young man, Jack was a proud scout. He led the Zürileu scout unit, which “unfor­tu­nate­ly no longer exists”, the 88-year-old thought­ful­ly recalls. After Jack resigned from his post, he received an enquiry from one of his scout col­leagues ask­ing if he would like to vol­un­teer at Swiss Youth Hos­tels. “My friend thought I was per­haps feel­ing bored now,” Jack said with a laugh.

This offer came at the time when the Zurich elec­torate had just approved the con­struc­tion of Zurich Youth Hos­tel on 8 Decem­ber 1962 and the board of the Zurich Youth Hos­tel Asso­ci­a­tion was expand­ed as a con­se­quence. These cir­cum­stances led to Jack being elect­ed to the Zurich man­age­ment board at the age of 28. In the past, the organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture of SYH was quite dif­fer­ent from today. When it was found­ed in 1924, there were 14 asso­ci­a­tions in Switzer­land – includ­ing the one in Zurich – and over 200 hos­tels.

About three years after the pos­i­tive vote, the new build­ing in Woll­ishofen was hand­ed over to the Zurich Youth Hos­tel Asso­ci­a­tion on 20 Decem­ber 1965. Jack remained as board mem­ber for the time being. Then one day, on 1 Jan­u­ary 1969, Ernst Schuler, a true vet­er­an and one of Jack­’s great role mod­els, offered him the job of man­ag­ing direc­tor. “Six months after I start­ed the job, he said to me: Mr Kern, you have what it takes. I’m going to hand it all over to you and call it a day,” Jack says with a laugh and con­tin­ues, “I had a very good rela­tion­ship with him. Ernst lived to be over 90 and even after his death Jack stayed in touch with Ern­st’s wife.

Jack’s milestones

After about four years of Jack serv­ing as man­ag­ing direc­tor, the four-mem­ber board of the asso­ci­a­tion found­ed the Swiss Foun­da­tion for Social Tourism on 11 May 1973. He head­ed it from then on until his retire­ment. Before the foun­da­tion was estab­lished, the prop­er­ties of the asso­ci­a­tion had not been des­ig­nat­ed for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose. This changed once the foun­da­tion was set up.

After 20 years of nego­ti­a­tions, Jack reach­es his next mile­stone on 1 Jan­u­ary 1992: The 14 youth hos­tel asso­ci­a­tions merge to form a nation­wide Swiss Youth Hos­tels Asso­ci­a­tion. The head office was opened on 1 May 1994 at Schaffhauser­strasse 14 in Zurich. Where it still is to this day. “This was my biggest suc­cess,” Jack says proud­ly.

Youth hostels around the world

A high­light for Jack as man­ag­ing direc­tor were the inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences in var­i­ous coun­tries such as Cana­da, Japan, India or Ire­land. Jack enthus­es: “The idea of hav­ing a glob­al youth hos­tel net­work is real­ly great.”

Due to his com­mit­ment, he also enjoyed cer­tain ben­e­fits. “Thanks to my con­nec­tions, I was able to trav­el to the GDR and back again with­out any prob­lems and with­out a visa. That used to be strict­ly for­bid­den,” Jack explained, “and because the youth tourists from Ger­many did­n’t have much mon­ey, we brought a train full of young trav­ellers to St Moritz so they could cheer on their suc­cess­ful nation­al bob­sleigh team.”

From pioneering days to professionalism

There is a world of dif­fer­ence between the youth hos­tels of yes­ter­year and today. When Jack is asked how he expe­ri­enced the change, he says: “I like the fact that I was able to expe­ri­ence the pio­neer­ing days of the Swiss Youth Hos­tels all the way to the lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism that the asso­ci­a­tion demon­strates today.” It was a long path from the sim­ple straw bed in Sul­sana to the mod­ern wellnessHostel3000 in Laax.

Fur­ther­more, his fam­i­ly had been heav­i­ly involved since the ear­ly days: “We often vis­it­ed youth hos­tels. Leisure, fam­i­ly and work merged togeth­er,” says Jack. His daugh­ter Esther Haug and grand­son Tobias Haug are still SYH del­e­gates to this day. Jack still main­tains close con­tact with his for­mer employ­ees.

And which youth hos­tel is the 88-year-old’s favourite? ”That’s def­i­nite­ly the St. Moritz Youth Hostel!” Jack exclaims. “I was involved in every aspect of this project. From the search for suit­able build­ing land and the plan­ning to the com­ple­tion of the new build­ing. This was the first time we built rooms for two and four peo­ple and not just dor­mi­to­ries.” For many years he went on hol­i­day with his fam­i­ly to the Enga­dine. He invit­ed the for­mer oper­a­tions man­ag­er of his favourite youth hos­tel to lunch the day after this con­ver­sa­tion

Jack Kern’s tire­less work con­tin­ues to this day. On 11 May 2023, the Swiss Foun­da­tion for Social Tourism will cel­e­brate its 50th anniver­sary and in 2024, Swiss Youth Hos­tels will cel­e­brate its cen­te­nary.