ETurboNews By David Browne British tourists are being ripped off by package holiday companies according to Which?, formerly the Consumers Association. An investigation by their researchers has revealed that prices offered on the British market are higher than those available to consumers in the rest of Europe.
In a comparison of brochure prices Which? found that customers in the UK are being charged as much as £237 (US$422) more than German and Dutch tourists for exactly the same package.
Researchers examined a range of brochures from the TUI group of companies which includes travel agents and tour operators across Europe, notably Thomson in Great Britain. The data are published in the March issue of the consumer magazine, Holiday Which?
As an example of rip-off pricing for British customers, Holiday Which? highlighted a holiday in Gran Canaria at the TUI owned Rui Palace Maspalomas. In various TUI brochures it was priced in euros at the equivalent of £523 in the Netherlands and £575 in Germany but cost £760 in the United Kingdom.
Such a hike in prices cannot be explained away as a difference in national tax rates as is the case with motor fuel, tobacco and alcohol products. Nor is it an effect of exchange rates between the British pound and the euro.
It means that tourists in the UK could take a trip on a budget airline across to Amsterdam, book the family vacation in the office of a Dutch travel agent and still make a huge saving on the brochure price charged by a travel agent down the street.
Consumer groups in the UK have repeatedly complained that buyers in Great Britain are made to pay more than their continental neighbours for the same goods and services, and for no good reason.
Bob Tolliday, of Holiday Which?, said that as the owner of a large number of travel agents and tour operators across Europe, TUI was the perfect company for price comparisons. "If TUI can offer these prices to holiday-makers in Germany and Holland, they should be able to offer them to the Brits as well.â€Â
The report also said consumers in the Netherlands and Germany were provided with better brochures than in the UK. They were more informative, laid out better and had a clear pricing booklet.
"Easy-to-follow brochures would make life much easier for those booking their holidays – that and TUI dropping the price of their UK packages, of course," said Tolliday.
Holiday Which? said they could find no reason why booking a package holiday in Britain should cost so much more as it was the same departure date, the same flight, the same hotel and the same standard room. Germany consumers even get a free return train journey to the airport as part of their package deal.
When the Which? organization contacted TUI and confronted them with their findings, the response was that the price differences were a result of variations in the operating costs of the different companies in the TUI group. |