Aroused elephant tops list of bizarre holiday grievances
LONDON – Concerns about the sand being too white, anger at too many fish being in the sea and feelings of inadequacy after seeing an aroused elephant were among the most bizarre complaints made by British holidaymakers.
Using research by The Association for British Travel Agents (ABTA) and Thomas Cook, Telegraph Travel has compiled a list of the 20 most ridiculous complaints received by tour operators in recent years.
One envious holidaymaker complained that his friend’s three-bedroom apartment was “clearly bigger†than his one-bedroom place, while others could not hide their frustration that it took them nine hours to fly back to England from Jamaica when it only took the American travellers a mere three hours to get home.
One Briton complained that the £3.50 pair of Ray Ban sunglasses bought from a street vendor, proved to be fake, another that his travel agent had failed to tell him to wear swimming trunks for his trip to a water park, while another tour operator was criticised for not telling a traveller that mosquitos could, in fact, bite.
Among the more jingoistic grievances were that there were too many Spanish people in Spain and too much curry served in restaurants in India.
A spokeswoman for ABTA said that it had witnessed a rise in complaints in recent years – in 2008 more than 22,000 people made complaints to ABTA-recognised operators, up from 19,552 complaints in 2007.
A spokesman for the Air Transport Users Council, the air passenger watchdog, said that the number of complaints it has received in the first three months of 2009 were up by more than 10 per cent on the same period last year.
Ian Jarrett
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