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Global Travel member criticised by advertising watchdog
A travel agent has been told off by the advertising watchdog for using a generic picture to illustrate a holiday offer.
Cheshire-based Holiday Gems used a picture of a waterfront hotel on its regional advert to promote a holiday to the four-star Soreda Hotel in Malta.
But a customer complained that not only was the picture not of the hotel quoted but that the Soreda Hotel mentioned was not on the waterfront.
The Advertising Standards Authority agreed that the advert by the Global Travel Group member was misleading.
The ruling said: "Because the offer related to a holiday at a specific, named hotel, the Soreda Hotel, we further considered that consumers would assume that the photo therefore represented the Soreda Hotel and that the hotel was on a waterfront.
"We understood that the image was in fact a generic image of a building in Malta.
"However, we did not consider that it was such a well-known building or iconic tourist site that consumers would recognise it as an example of a particular sight that they might see, were they to visit Malta, rather than a representation of the advertised hotel."
Southend airport also had a complaint against its offer of ‘Free Parking* in January & February 2013’ upheld by the ASA.
The watchdog said the claim would be interpreted by readers to mean that parking was available for free throughout those two months.
But in the small print a number of dates were not available – totalling nine days.
The ruling said: "We considered that exclusions were significant conditions which were likely to influence a consumer’s decision about whether to respond and should have been made clear in the ad itself."
Diane
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