Comments on: False advertising is on the increase in travel http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/ Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:52:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Lisa Spurlock http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/#comment-138462 Lisa Spurlock Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:45:01 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=3209#comment-138462 Just wanted to chime in two cents on "False Green Claims". I'm not sure where you were going on this, since it was given such a short portion of your article. One hears quite a bit about "green washing'" nowadays. Some hotels are more green than others and there are many different green things that hotels can do to be more environmentally friendly. Even if they just switch to energy saving bulbs, recycle some of their trash, change linens only on request - that's a good start as those three activities save energy, keep garbage out of landfills, and saves water. Hotels are getting greener all the time and realizing that they save money too! Just wanted to chime in two cents on “False Green Claims”. I’m not sure where you were going on this, since it was given such a short portion of your article. One hears quite a bit about “green washing’” nowadays. Some hotels are more green than others and there are many different green things that hotels can do to be more environmentally friendly. Even if they just switch to energy saving bulbs, recycle some of their trash, change linens only on request – that’s a good start as those three activities save energy, keep garbage out of landfills, and saves water. Hotels are getting greener all the time and realizing that they save money too!

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]]> By: Murray Harrold http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/#comment-137955 Murray Harrold Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:42:50 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=3209#comment-137955 Oh! This old chestnut! We have had this one washing around the trade ever since Thommy Cook was a boy. It is, though, a valid argument nonetheless. Given that you have (potentially) the whole world chasing, say, 4 seats on a holiday, keeping up is quite hard. The view taken is that "one shall not take the you-know-what" You try as best you can to keep offers up to date and valid and on balance, the trade does manage this reasonably well (IMHO) No-one blatantly puts something silly in the window (or on the web) any more. Mind you, I have seen a holiday price change whilst clients have been debating which one to take.... ! Oh! This old chestnut! We have had this one washing around the trade ever since Thommy Cook was a boy. It is, though, a valid argument nonetheless. Given that you have (potentially) the whole world chasing, say, 4 seats on a holiday, keeping up is quite hard. The view taken is that “one shall not take the you-know-what” You try as best you can to keep offers up to date and valid and on balance, the trade does manage this reasonably well (IMHO) No-one blatantly puts something silly in the window (or on the web) any more. Mind you, I have seen a holiday price change whilst clients have been debating which one to take…. !

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]]> By: Darren Cronian http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/#comment-137838 Darren Cronian Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:37:38 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=3209#comment-137838 @ Nick Good point - maybe what is needed is technology needs improving. They have the travel technology show, and people rap on about how technology advanced the travel industry is but in reality I cannot believe that travel agents still use those teletext / ceefax type screens when searching for holidays. @ Nick

Good point – maybe what is needed is technology needs improving. They have the travel technology show, and people rap on about how technology advanced the travel industry is but in reality I cannot believe that travel agents still use those teletext / ceefax type screens when searching for holidays.

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]]> By: Nick http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/#comment-137828 Nick Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:09:13 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=3209#comment-137828 Darren The thing to remember with the UK is holidays are done on most websites by screen scraping. We had a chat about how old travel tech is and that it does not work well with the web. So each night companies collect the data and post this information, so when you log in at 7 am it can already be 5-9 hours out, just getting worse though the day. To show you how it works we had a holiday to Malta we placed in our window one morning for 249.00, a customer came in at lunch time and the price was 229.00 so went to tell his wife and came back 15 minutes later to find the price was 299.00, all this in less than 3 hours, so think what 12 hours does. Darren

The thing to remember with the UK is holidays are done on most websites by screen scraping. We had a chat about how old travel tech is and that it does not work well with the web. So each night companies collect the data and post this information, so when you log in at 7 am it can already be 5-9 hours out, just getting worse though the day. To show you how it works we had a holiday to Malta we placed in our window one morning for 249.00, a customer came in at lunch time and the price was 229.00 so went to tell his wife and came back 15 minutes later to find the price was 299.00, all this in less than 3 hours, so think what 12 hours does.

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]]> By: Mark Sukhija http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/02/14/false-advertising-is-on-the-increase-in-travel/#comment-137794 Mark Sukhija Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:02:04 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=3209#comment-137794 Darren, Interesting post. I have a feeling many will attempt "misleading" advertising over the downturn. The best advice is, as always, to read the small print and get the details before you sign anything. Of course, improved standards from the ASA are necessary but essentially meaningless without proper enforcement - which is quite another thing and usually very time consuming. This is where, I think, the internet is a very useful tool to consumers. The internet is useful not only in terms of alerting cosumers to specific instances of misleading advertising but also more general "tricks of the trade." A small amount of research either online or offline (shopping at more than one travel agent or friends recomendations for example) can be equally useful tools in (a) exposing mislead ads and more importantly (b) finding reputable players in the first place. Darren,

Interesting post. I have a feeling many will attempt “misleading” advertising over the downturn.

The best advice is, as always, to read the small print and get the details before you sign anything.

Of course, improved standards from the ASA are necessary but essentially meaningless without proper enforcement – which is quite another thing and usually very time consuming.

This is where, I think, the internet is a very useful tool to consumers. The internet is useful not only in terms of alerting cosumers to specific instances of misleading advertising but also more general “tricks of the trade.” A small amount of research either online or offline (shopping at more than one travel agent or friends recomendations for example) can be equally useful tools in (a) exposing mislead ads and more importantly (b) finding reputable players in the first place.

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