I am back home feeling relaxed and refreshed after an eventful trip to Turkey and Rhodes. I departed the day after the news that XL Leisure Group had gone into administration and I wondered if it was going to have an impact on my flight, and what chaos I was going to walk into at Manchester Airport.

Despite the Civil Aviation Authority asking XL customers to stay away from airports, many ignored this advice, which caused a lot of disruption. I booked this last minute holiday with Co-Operative Travel, and the tour operator, Goldtrail, so luckily for me, I was not involved directly.

XL Saga changes my travel plans.

On arrival at the airport, I was asked if I would be happy to move resorts, to Marmaris, in return free tours and money compensation. This meant that a family who had booked with XL to Bodrum could go on holiday.

The family were happy, the tour operator were happy, and more importantly I was happy.

I do have a few points that I would like to make. These recommendations are general and are not directed at one company alone. The Marmaris Gunes hotel is an average hotel, the location was good, just a short walk to the beach, the room was nice enough, and I had a scenic view of the mountains.

Lack of brochure and online information from tour operators

The accommodation page is pretty much the norm, a few photos, a paragraph describing the hotel and resort. Maybe I am asking for too much information; but I would like to see a map of the hotel to the beach, and restaurants, videos, and quality description of the hotel.

I will repeat what I have said before; tour operators need to be more proactive in gathering more data on resorts and hotels. I have seen so many poorly written hotel descriptions and poor quality or old photographs on websites lately.

Hotels need educating by the tour operator

What I did not like is that I could not purchase my own drinks or snacks from outside and consume them in the hotel. You were forced you to pay over the top prices for mineral water. In fact, the bottles of water were three times that of the supermarket over the road.

As you can imagine this did not go down well with me and I ignored the notices throughout the hotel.

I am led to believe that this is a widespread issue, and the Turkish Tourism Board is trying to educate hoteliers to relax these rules. The hotel is trying to keep us in the hotel, spending money, but all it does is makes the holidaymaker annoyed.

Both the bar and restaurant were like a ghost town on most days, despite full capacity.

Hidden local costs

I do not mind paying for air conditioning, especially when the temperature is incredibly high, but if it is not included in the price of the holiday, and should be paid locally, then this information should be given at the booking stage. How are you supposed to compare the price when they are hidden costs?

Airport transfers literature and guidance.

I know most of us want to relax or look at the scenery on route to our hotels from the airport but from the last few occasions that I have booked a package holiday, none of the tour operators provided what I would call quality information on the resort.

No maps, information on tourist attractions or trips.

I think that is it for now, but let me know what you think of the points raised in this post.

Related posts

• Families pay more for self catering package holidays
• Tour operators take bookings for resorts that are closed
• Tour operators have a duty of care towards holidaymakers
• Lack of airport transfer information online
• My thoughts on the future of online travel

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