Public Apology to On the Beach Holidays
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, April 21st, 2007

I’ve been blogging for the past two years, and on a dozen or so occasions, I have had to mention companies in particular. On the 11th April 2007, I wrote a blog article about a company called On the Beach after my uncle had informed me he had made a booking with this company and had communication issues.

Public Apology to On the Beach Holidays

Rather than contact the company direct and get a response before posting the blog article, I went ahead and ranted. This was a massive error on my part, as it now materialises that my uncle had not booked the holiday with On the Beach, and the communication issues were with another travel company.

With hindsight, I should have left this until I returned back from my holiday, and gathered more information. For me this is embarrassing, and does dent my reputation as being a fair travel blogger, but I am man enough to hold my hands up and apologise publicly to On the Beach, and its director for my error. This has been a massive lesson in how not to blog.

Having spoken to On the Beach, I realise a little more about what travel companies have to go through when dealing with consumer complaints and issues, and I am willing to give my time for a day, to work with On the Beach, or any travel company, to understand what issues they have, so that as a blogger I can understand both perspectives, and continue being fair as I have in the past two years.


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6 responses to “Public Apology to On the Beach Holidays”

simon cooper | 21 April, 2007 at 2:23 pm

Many thanks Darren

Good to talk to you, glad we could clear this up

My faith in you is restored!

All the best

Simon

Rohan | 21 April, 2007 at 2:30 pm

Well all make mistakes Darren, chin up.

Don’t let this put you off writing.

Darren Cronian | 21 April, 2007 at 2:32 pm

Thank you Simon, your comments are much appreciated.

Rohan, we do, but this was my first on the blog, and embarrassing at that.

Charles | 21 April, 2007 at 2:36 pm

I have to say I have been following this story, and I am impressed with how Simon has dealt with this issue. I work for a large airline [you know who Darren] and we get thousands of complaints every day, some are genuine, some are people trying to pull a fast one.

Do not let this put you off ranting about companies, especially since you’ve ranted about ours for long enough! haha

Paul | 21 April, 2007 at 3:08 pm

Darren,

Well done for owning up to your mistake. Sounds like Simon Cooper is happy about your apology too, so it does seem like no harm is done.

It is very difficult to withdraw comments once they have written, but you may want to add a line to your robots.txt file to stop the search engines displaying the orignal complaint page if people seach for information about On The Beach. Only seems fair to me.

Anyway, we all make mistakes, just as long as we learn from our mistakes then all is well!

Debbie | 21 April, 2007 at 7:36 pm

I wouldn’t be embarrassed.

Ask any reporter and I am sure they will tell you that they have had to apologise at some time in their career due to bad advice or off-the-cuff remark that they have made.

Keep up the great work you do Darren.

Consumers need people like you on their side.