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On the Beach has had a complaint upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority over a misleading accommodation rating.
The online agency promoted an apartment called Laguna Park 2 with three gold stars on its website, but at the bottom of the page, stated that the official rating was two star. The complainant, who had booked a holiday at the accommodation, challenged whether the complex warranted a three-star rating.
On the Beach said that apartment complexes in Spain like the Laguna Park 2 were often run as hotels as they provided similar services. However, they were ranked in “keys”, not stars, with the highest rating being “3 key”.
The agency said that in order to provide a level playing field with hotels that used a star ratings system, it was common practice to allocate an equivalent rating for apartments. On the Beach added that one key was equivalent to two star, two key equivalent to three stars and three key equal to four star. It claimed that this was the case across many travel websites.
The ASA ruled that the ad was misleading, although it accepted that it was common practice across the industry for travel agents to use their own rating system for accommodation.
The ruling said: “We considered that consumers would understand that travel agents used their own rating system, but that they would also understand that accommodation generally had an official rating determined by the appropriate authority in the territory the accommodation was located.
“We understood that the official rating for accommodation was usually communicated using star symbols and therefore unless the ad made clear that the travel agent was using their own rating, consumers were likely to expect the star rating to be the official rating.”
The ASA acknowledged that text at the bottom of the page stated "official rating 2 star", but said this lacked prominence. It added: “We considered that the qualification contradicted, rather than clarified the more prominent three star rating.”
The ASA said that On the Beach had been willing to amend the ad, but had not, at the time of the complaint, made it clear that it was using its own rating system and that the ad was therefore misleading.
