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Join Which? TravelWhy your beach hotel could be nowhere near the beach
Always do this one thing before booking accommodation described as close to the seafront
Holidaymakers have booked beach hotels only to find themselves miles from the sea, research by Which? Travel has found.
In a survey, 64% of readers said that they’d expect a hotel described as close to the beach to be no more than 500 metres away.
Yet one traveller found himself walking ‘up steep hills’ in Tenerife. Another reported having to travel two miles to reach the nearest stretch of coastline in Corfu.
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Hotel not as described
It’s all too easy for consumers to get caught out. When we googled ‘Costa Blanca Beach hotels’, the second page brought up a listing from Booking.com headed ‘The 10 Best Costa Blanca Beach Hotels – Hotels on the Beach in Costa Blanca, Spain’. But the first two hotels were around half a mile from the beach, and not one of them was actually on the beachfront.
Similarly, if you booked a ‘beach hotel’ on Lastminute.com, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d be able to feel the sand between your toes just moments after leaving your chalet. Not so for Hillstone Bodrum Hotel and Spa. Scroll down to the description and you’ll see it’s 1.5 miles from Bodrum beach.
The same is true of Premier Inn’s Isle of Wight Sandown (Merrie Gardens) hotel, which the website describes as having a ‘seaside location’. In reality, you’ll be 1.3 miles from Sandown beach, as the information further down the page explains.
‘It’s a little distance from the beachfront,’ explains one Tripadvisor reviewer, ‘but close to KFC and Aldi and Morrison’s supermarkets, if that’s your thing’. Premier Inn’s other Sandown property (seafront) is indeed located slap-bang on the beach.
It’s a reminder to always do some extra research - including plotting your hotel on a map - before you book. If you are not provided with the accommodation that was described, you may be entitled to compensation under the Consumer Rights Act.
How to complain about hotel accommodation
Four tips to check your hotel’s location
- Be cautious of hotel descriptions and read T&Cs carefully. Is it five minutes from the beach by foot or by car? If you don’t have a vehicle, it could make a huge difference to your holiday.
- Type the hotel address into a map app to check the location for yourself.
- Use Street View on Google Maps if you want a clearer picture of your surroundings. Just drag the ‘Pegman’ icon from the right hand corner of the screen to the location you want to explore.
- Another tool at google.com/travel allows you to search for hotels or holiday rentals close to the beach, or another landmark, of your choice.
