ASA Adjudication on Travelmood Ltd

Ad

Two press ads, for holidays with the tour operator Traveltalk, booked through the travel agent Travelmood, gave a headline price for various different holidays and tours, and contained a footnote that stated "Local payment on all trips: £90." Both ads described the Egyptian tours as "5 star tours from £149."

Issue

Go Travelling Ltd objected:

1. that the headline price did not include the non-optional £90 local payment; and

2. that Travelmood's reference to the Traveltalk Egypt tour as "5 star" was misleading because they believed Egypt had a different star system and part of the tour was on a boat, which was unlikely to have a 5-star rating.

CAP Code

Response

1. Travelmood Ltd (Travelmood) said they believed that, because the local payment on trips booked through them could only be paid abroad and they did not collect it, it was not necessary to include it in the headline price. They said they were careful to state that a local payment was charged on all trips in a footnote in their ads.

2. Travelmood said the hotels on the "5 star tours" in question were certified by the Egyptian Hotel Association as five star. With respect to the cruise boats on the tours they said these were certified as five star by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA considered that, because the local payment was a non-optional payment imposed on all buyers by and through the tour operator it should be included in the headline price for the trips. We concluded that the failure to include the local payment in the headline price was likely to mislead readers about the true cost of the tour.

On this point, the ad breached CAP code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 15.2 (Prices). We also investigated under CAP code clause 3.1 (Substantiation) but did not find it in breach.

2. Not upheld

We understood that there was no globally agreed or standardised star rating system for hotels and cruise boats. We considered that most consumers would understand this and would be aware that a five-star hotel or boat in Egypt might be graded differently from a five-star hotel or boat in the UK. We accepted that the hotels and cruise boats on the advertised Egypt tours were certified "5 star" by the Egyptian Hotel Association and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism respectively.

On this point, we investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 15.2 (Prices) but did not find it in breach.

Action

We told Travelmood to include local payments in the prices quoted for tours in the headline prices of their ads in future.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)