Hotel company misled customers, says ASA

Principal Hotel Company has been forced to make changes to its website after it was criticised by advertising watchdogs for misleading consumers.

The company, which markets a collection of hotels on its website www.phcompany.com, fell foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for its advert for rooms at the De Vere Horsley Estate.

The ASA agreed with a consumer who complained that the site failed to make it clear that some of the hotel’s rooms were not within the country manor photographed on the homepage, they were located instead in a more modern management centre.

Principal Hotel Company said the website booking engine ‘clearly stated’ where each room type was located (the Towers or the adjacent management centre, Horsley Place) and pointed out that the main guest room listing ‘clearly stated’ in the first line of the room description that it was located within an adjacent training centre.

Also, it said this was prominently stated on the ‘Rooms’ subsection of the website.

Principal said it made it clear which building a guest was booked into by splitting the room types between the buildings – only the Deluxe rooms and Suites were available within the Towers. Guest rooms and Superior rooms were only available in Horsley Place, which it said was reflected in the price of the rooms.

While the only external image used on the hotel homepage was of the manor, Principal said an aerial shot included in the website’s main gallery showed a bird’s eye view of the entire estate that clearly labelled the ‘original mansion house, modern management Centre and the court building’.

However, during the ASA investigation Principal agreed to amend its advertising to include emboldened text alongside each of the room listings that stated the location.

In its ruling the ASA said: "The ASA noted that the ad featured the headline ‘De Vere Horsley Estate. A striking 19th century mansion house in the heart of the Surrey countryside’ alongside a large photo of the mansion house. In the absence of additional information to indicate otherwise, we considered consumers would understand that, should they make a booking, they would stay in the advertised mansion house.

"We noted a series of images under the tab "Rooms" found at the top of the website’s home page, provided descriptions of the hotel’s guest rooms and stated that they were located in Horsley Place, which we understood was separate to the advertised mansion house. However, we considered that text was not particularly prominent and consumers were unlikely to understand without further information that Horsley Place was separate to the mansion house.

"We noted there were no images of Horsley Place attached to the guest room listing and there was only one external picture on the website, which was a bird’s eye view that also included the mansion house. Although Horsley Place was mentioned in a caption beneath the photo, it was not clear which building it referred to and there were no photos of what the building looked like from the ground.

"Because the majority of photos on the website were of the mansion house, with no external photos of Horsley Place beyond the bird’s eye photo and limited indication that the guest rooms were not located in the mansion house, we considered that consumers would understand that the guest rooms would be in the mansion house. Because that was not the case, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead."