Friday, June 04, 2010

Truth in advertising

I came across this offer on the Birmingham (UK) International Airport site.



It's offering a holiday in Dubai...but staying at a hotel in Ras Al Khaimah.

Surely it should be saying "Ras Al Khaimah from £899pp"?

I'd have thought that people being offered a holiday in Dubai would expect...well...a holiday in Dubai.

Staying about 100 kilometres from where you're supposed to be holidaying might come as something of a surprise.



I found the ad here.

11 comments:

Neil Roberts said...

..very true! ... and it doens't really look like that in RAK either does it?

Var said...

Nope it dosent.Rak dosent have loose sand.It has a desert landscape of rocks and stones being geographically located near the mountains.

hut said...

it's not untrue: the flight (probably) goes to Dubai, not RAK.

Seabee said...

Nick, so you'd be quite happy if you bought a holiday in London only to discover it was seven nights in a hotel in Birmingham - because the plane landed at Heathrow?

Anonymous said...

@Nick, FYI.. there is an International Airport in RAK

www.rakairport.com/

:D

Alexander said...

Mind you, expecting to find truth in advertising is a bit like expecting to find diamonds in poo...

hut said...

Seabee, maybe it's my eyes but I can clearly see 'Hilton Ras Al Khaimah' below the Dubai header.

There is something called 'personal responsibility for your actions' even when booking a holiday.

Seabee said...

True, Nick...but the headline clearly says 'Dubai from 899'.

I know from various forums and travel sites that many, many people do not know that RAK is not in Dubai. A typical question is along the lines of "I'm staying in Dubai, at the RAK Hotel. Can I walk to the main attractions?"

Anonymous said...

RAK is one of the 7 Emirates that make up the UAE and is not Dubai. Even if the flight landed in Dubai and the client was carted off to RAK, this is not fair or accurate. However, on the flipside, many people travel and stay in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi whilst on holiday to the UAE but they say they have been to 'Dubai'. A lot of people assume that Dubai is a country in itself unfortunately. Maybe this has to be said whilst trying to sell a holiday package to these emirates because Dubai has put itself on the map slightly better and earlier in the past, so it is more viable to sell a holiday mentioning Dubai rather than any of the other Emirates.

Hazel said...

As a South African I can relate to this in-accurately advertised holiday...
Many people (I will not point fingers at any particular nation) believe that South Africa is the entire continent of Africa, and not one of 57 countries on the continent!!
And that because someone has visited Kenya, that I'll know their brother who lives in Johannesburg...

Stephanie said...

How annoying! Can you imagine how upset you'd be if you thought you were traveling to Dubai and ended up in another of the Emirates? Yes, I agree that there is some personal responsibility, but the ad itself is so misleading when it implies you will be traveling to (and presumably staying in) Dubai. Hope the ad has been pulled.

http://hubpages.com/hub/visit-dubai