Iceland Tours rapped by advertising watchdogs
Iceland Tours has fallen foul of advertising watchdogs after failing to prove that it had a sufficient number of holidays available for the lead-in price stated on posters and on its website icelandair.co.uk.
It advertised three-night short breaks to Iceland’s Golden Circle from £299, but the Advertising Standards Authority, which investigated following a customer complaint, said the company had failed to show that at least 10% of trips were available at the lead-in price.
The company also advertised a three-night whale watching city break with the same lead in price on its website, but the ASA said the ad didn’t make it clear the package was only available on selected departure dates from each relevant airport.
Iceland Tours told the ASA that it always ensured that at least 10% of holidays were available at the ‘from’ price during the advertised sales period and it provided details of package holiday bookings made in February and March for which more than a quarter were made at its lead airfare for travel from April 5 to May 28, the dates relevant for the Golden Circle package at the time the ad appeared.
However, it said customers might have been charged more to travel on dates for which the lead-in fare wasn’t available. The company said it was "highly unlikely" its £299 whale watching city breaks had sold out, but it said the complainant might have not been able to book at that price because the departure dates or flights might not have been suitable.
The ASA said: "We considered consumers would expect each package, along with other packages that were promoted separately at promotional prices, to be available to book at the advertised price.
"We therefore considered advertisers should be in a position to demonstrate that at least 10% of seats (as a proportion of the total seats available) were available to book for each of the packages at £299 in a relatively even spread across the travel period.
"We noted the data Iceland Tours submitted related to packages generally, rather than separately to each of the two featured packages, and therefore considered they had not demonstrated sufficient availability.
"In addition, we noted that the data did not relate to the entire travel period for the whale watching tour (and also did not include every travel date for the Golden Circle tour). We were also concerned that the ads did not make clear the travel dates for which the advertised prices were available, or that the whale watching package was available on only selected departure dates from each relevant airport.
"Because we had not seen evidence to demonstrate the availability of a minimum of 10% of bookable seats for each tour at the advertised "from" price, we concluded that the ads breached the Code."
It said the ads must not appear again in their current form.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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