Accommodation-only suppliers are responsible for up to five times the number of customer complaints this summer as tour operators.
Bedbank chief executive Peter Healey said results released by sister company Future Travel revealed the worst offending bed bank in August accounted for 20% of all complaints as opposed to just 4% for the worst-offending tour operator. Healey declined to name the bed bank.
The results were based on complaints through more than 600 Future Travel agents.
Customers complained that inaccurate descriptions of properties or over-generous star ratings were areas of concern.
Healey said: “There is a huge difference in the number of complaints for tour operators and for accommodation-only suppliers. It is almost a case of the larger the supplier, the bigger the complaint ratio. It is agents who have to deal with complaints about bed bank accommodation and then take responsibility for it.”
Medhotels.com commercial director Carl Burrows agreed bed banks were too price-focused, adding Med Hotels maintained a complaint ratio of just 1% with an in-resort customer service and called on other bed banks to improve service levels.
Kathryn Beadle, marketing and sales director of Argo Holidays, which owns Medlife Hotels, said the company plans to counter any problems by introducing a trade website where agents can post comments on properties in time for January.
However, hotels4u.com sales and marketing director John Harding said the supplier mostly features the same hotels as mainstream operators and added agents should accept responsibility for bookings.
He added: “Agents are driving customers to properties purely on the basis of price rather than looking at the details of the property to ensure the product fits the bill.”
On Holiday Group chief executive Steve Endacott agreed, saying: “Agents have got to start recognising by dynamic packaging they are a tour operator and if they work as a tour operator they’ve got to take responsibility for what they sell.”