I received a few calls from contacts in the industry this week who said they hoped our Watchdog report on pages 32 and 33 would slate the programme.
In other words they wanted us to indulge in the kind of biased, one-sided reporting which they claim Watchdog is guilty of.
That would be pointless – instead we wanted to find out more about the programme.
The principle of a consumer show is a healthy one.
Just because the standard of mass-market holidays has improved immensely and the big companies do, for the most part, offer consumers a very good deal, that does not mean they are beyond scrutiny or are immune from criticism.
Imagine a tour operator saving up for a year and buying ú1,000 worth of, for example, Sony hi-fi equipment and then finding it was faulty and part of a faulty batch. Then imagine that tour operator saying ‘I don’t want any compensation and I don’t want this exposed on Watchdog because Sony is a very good company which has given pleasure to millions’. Laughable, isn’t it?
Watchdog has made mistakes and I feel it should concentrate on big issues and strip out some of the sensationalism. But if tour operators could switch off the press when they felt like it and consequently muffle any kind of criticism, the standard of package holidays on the market would be a lot worse than it is now.
JeremySkidmore – editor