You know as well as I do about the eccentricities of some county court rulings, such as the judge who decided the standard cabin configuration on transatlantic charters comprised cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Stoke-on-Trent judge who ruled in favour of a customer whose holiday was, to quote the tabloid press, “ruined by Germans”, appears to have interpreted the Package Travel Regulations correctly.
If a tour operator promises facilities such as a kids’ club or windsurfing tuition, and it is then available only in a language that the client cannot understand, then the contract has not been fulfilled.
Just a reminder about the facts of this curious case. The Barnish family from Staffordshire booked a Thomson holiday to the Grecotel Park in Kos. As is often the case in this pan-European industry, TUI Travel extracts benefits from selling the same property in different markets.
But on arrival, the family discovered that the vast majority of guests were from Germany – and, it is asserted, all the activities were conducted only in German.
It is not clear what representations were made to the Thomson rep at the time, but the family was subsequently awarded £750 in damages.
A lesson, then (if one were needed), for tour operators. But the case also draws attention to the alarmingly low tolerance that some British holidaymakers seem to have for other cultures – and, in particular, the Germans.
For me, half the point of a holiday is to meet people from different cultures. Plainly, some Brits want to mingle exclusively with other Brits. Tour operators have, I think, encouraged this by highlighting properties in their brochures which are exclusively ‘British’ – though in these multicultural days that is a difficult concept to define.
More serious is our apparent collective discomfort with German people. The Second World War ended 63 years ago – but we still seem to feel we have the right to cling to holiday myths such as the Germans setting their alarms early so they can get their towels on the sunloungers first.
I have been to plenty of hotels shared by Germans and British holidaymakers and I have never seen any first-hand evidence that it happens.
The tabloid press eggs us on, reporting this story with headlines such as ‘Wish you were (not) herr’, ‘Don’t mention the tour’, ‘Kraut of order’ and ‘Holiday from Helmut’.
Maybe the next generation of travellers will finally open up to Germany – and Germans – and even learn to speak a few languages. Until then, I guess we have to accept that customers, like judges, are always right – even when they are completely wrong.
