03 June 2008

Get me out of here, I'm English

LONDON - A British holidaymaker was awarded compensation by a court because there were too many German tourists at the hotel he booked in Greece, newspapers reported Saturday.

David Barnish, 47, paid 4000 pounds to take his wife and three daughters to a resort in Kos, but the family were unable to take part in entertainment or children's activities because they were only organised in the German language, the Daily Telegraph and Sun reported.

Barnish sued holiday company Thomson for breach of contract, claiming it had failed to disclose that the Grecotel Park hotel was used almost exclusively by Germans.

A court in the central English city of Stoke awarded him 750 pounds in compensation after a judge ruled that customers at a hotel featured in an English-language brochure should be provided for in their own language, the reports said.

Barnish told the papers: "I'm not racist. I wouldn't like to take my family holiday at a hotel over-run by English holidaymakers and the same would also apply if there were French or Spanish or any nationality.

"But everything from the leaflets telling you what's on in the morning to the people staying there, the language the reps spoke in and service was all in German."

Barnish said just 25 of the 700 guests at the hotel were English when his family stayed there in August 2007, and the remainder were mostly German.