When you travel it is a buyer beware situation. Recently we stayed in a hotel that had piles of smelly seaweed on the beach. A hotel cannot control the seaweed but we learned from a staff member that this is an annual occurrence. Certainly, the hotel isn't going to tell you that for several months a year you cannot use their beach because the winds blow in seaweed. It would put them out of business if they warned you.
I'm not sure how you'd do the research to figure this out. They did advertise that the hotel was on one of the longest beaches on the island.
We cancelled one of our nights and left early.
What are your thoughts? Do they have any responsibility to tell you about the problem?
Reply to this A difficult question. Yes, maybe the hotel should have a moral responsibility to let you know about things of which they are aware, but they also have a responsibility to make profits from their business.
I'm pleased to say that, during my umpteen years in the holiday industry, I was always careful to be transparent about the negatives and would be sure to tell customers if, for example, it was the season for Meltemi winds in Turkey or Greece, the monsoon in Asia, the usual things we knew about in advance. Clearly, the hotel to which you refer preferred to keep quiet about their smelly seaweed season!
They are unlikely to put pictures of said seaweed on their website or promotional material, of course. Perhaps, without giving the game away, they might have been better advised to offer significantly-reduced rates during seaweed times - in expectation of you asking why the price was so much lower than normal and, at least, putting up some form of defence for not being open about the nasty beach!
Alas, there doesn't seem to be a law that says hoteliers have to tell you the bad stuff as well as the good! It's not like buying a new car, where you'd have some legal come-back if the wheels fell off it on the way home from the showroom.
However, you do always have the right to vote with your feet, as you did, when things are not as you had expected. Your most powerful weapon though is writing internet reviews to be read by other potential visitors - as many reviews as you like, as many photos as you like - the remedy is in your hands (and it makes you feel a whole lot better about your disappointment too).
Reply to this Mike,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I didn't realize you had been in the holiday industry.
Generally, I would not have expected a hotel to give much of a warning until I learned the seaweed was an annual event... which got me to thinking. It would be a difficult situation to be in but I imagine I would have mentioned it and as you said given a discount during that time period.
Yes, we did the right thing by leaving a day early and fortunately they didn't penalize us for which we were extremely happy.
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