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Many people are familiar with the situation on holiday: even early in the morning, tourists run to the pool or beach to occupy a sunbed with a towel. And then the sunbeds stand booked for hours, even though no one is there.
Now this long-standing resort tradition may turn into a problem for the hotels and tour operators themselves. The reason is a court ruling that recognised the constant shortage of sunbeds as grounds for compensation.
Last week a German tourist won a case against his tour operator.
Her husband complained that during a family holiday in Greece he spent about 20 minutes every day looking for a free sun lounger. And this despite the fact that he woke up for this purpose at six in the morning.
The court in Hannover took his side and ordered the family to pay almost 1,000 euros in compensation.
In comments to the Daily Mail, the man called the decision a signal to hotels and tour operators, who for years turned a blind eye to the so-called morning race for sunbeds.
Some resorts are already starting to change the rules, with sunbeds being assigned to guests as early as check-in or restrictions on towel reservations.
Why don’t I do the same?
A family paid 7186 euros for a holiday on the Greek island of Kos.
The tourist claimed: the administration formally prohibited to occupy sunbeds with towels, but in practice no one controlled it.
According to him, as early as six in the morning all the sunbeds were occupied, although there were often no people around. Sometimes his children had to lie directly on the ground.
The operator had initially offered compensation of €350, but the court decided that the family should receive €987.
The judges noted: the travel company does not run the hotel itself and cannot guarantee every guest a free sunbed at every moment. At the same time, the operator is obliged to organise holidays so that the number of sunbeds at least reasonably corresponds to the number of tourists.
According to the Daily Mail, the plaintiff was 48-year-old pilot from Düsseldorf David Eggert, a father of two children.
It was a huge luxury hotel with about four hundred sunbeds. And they were all occupied with towels,” he said.
At the same time, he said, many tourists did not use the sunbeds at all: some went for a walk in the city and some went back to their rooms to sleep.
Eggert is convinced that the decision could have serious consequences for the tourism industry.
When people encounter the same problem again this summer, they will say: Someone has already sued over this.
He also noted: If tourists start suing en masse over the shortage of sunbeds, the costs to tour operators could reach millions.
A special signal
After publicising the story the experience.
Andrew Mills from Newcastle recalls that during a holiday on the Greek island of Zakynthos he hardly used the pool because already at six in the morning all the sunbeds were occupied by towels.
Another tourist described a similar situation in Turkish Antalya: according to him, the daily struggle for sunbeds seriously spoilt the impression of the holiday.
However, some hotels have already found their own ways to curb the lacquer wars.
One of the holidaymakers told about two popular resort complexes on the Mediterranean coast of France, where a special signal is sounded twice a day. If the owner of the sunbed does not appear, all the things left behind are taken by the hotel staff to the lost and found.
Another tourist mentioned a hotel in Protaras, Cyprus, where there is a strict system of securing sunbeds: guests get their own place for the whole period of their holiday and can change it only through the administration.
Colin Davison, 73, from Newcastle, described the system in Paphos, Cyprus, as wonderful.
According to hotel rules, sunbeds are allocated to guests as soon as they check in. You can even ask for a specific spot and change it later.
Another tourist described a similar order in another Cypriot hotel: Each umbrella has its own number. The hotel assigns them to guests – one umbrella for two people. There are two sunbeds near each one, so a family of four gets two umbrellas and four sunbeds. And there are no conflicts.
Folk methods of struggle
Some tourists admit: they had to fight with the passion for sunbeds and less official ways – although they themselves admit that this is far from the best solution.
One holidaymaker recalled a holiday in Ibiza: People started occupying the sunbeds with towels at night. But it stopped afterwards – someone would come in at night and just dump all the towels in the pool.