Two British tourists traveling Israel last month have been taken aback to find out that the four-celebrity, beachfront hotel they’d booked inside the coronary heart of Jaffa’s picturesque old city became definitely a rundown, deserted construction.
Christine Sillman and her daughter Tonya told the Daily Mail this week they reserved a room on the “Royal Jaffa Hotel” after seeing advertisements on Booking.Com boasting of its primary region with rooms offering flat-display TVs, en suite toilets, and ocean perspectives. But when they arrived for their two-day visit on May 16, the Tillmans said they found a deserted, crumbling construction that regarded more like a production website than the luxurious $152-a-night time lodging that became promised.
“It wasn’t pretty the beachfront resort with sea view balconies that we had been looking forward to,” Sillman advised the Mail. “We were walking down the road and got to this building at the corner in which the hotel turned into intended to be. But all we determined changed into a break. There have been some balconies, lots of ladders placing approximately everywhere, and a few stairs we walked up that led nowhere.” “Booking.Com need to have virtually checked that the place existed before permitting it to be marketed on their internet site,” she said.
When they asked around approximately the inn, a concierge in a close-by five-big name motel advised the Sillman’s they weren’t the primary vacationers to come back looking for the nonexistent Royal Jaffa and that it changed into a rip-off. Sillman stated she and her daughter frantically set out to discover an ultimate-minute accommodation in Tel Aviv. Having arrived on the weekend of the Eurovision tune contest, the challenge turned into no longer clean. “We could have been in real problem as it turned into the night before Eurovision and everywhere changed into packed,” she said.
Online, the Royal Jaffa billed itself as a “four-star hotel [with] air-conditioned rooms and a personal lavatory.”
“Rooms are equipped with a terrace. At the hotel, rooms include a balcony with a sea view. In addition, the units include a flat-screen TV with satellite channels,” said the advert posted on Booking.Com and different websites.
The Royal Jaffa Hotel is no longer listed on Booking.Com, and the inn’s internet site itself gives few records and no photographs of the actual accommodations. In addition, the smartphone number for the inn’s manager, Nir Tsouris, turned into disconnected.
Booking.Com has agreed to refund the Sillman’s the value of their opportunity lodging, in addition to taxis and different expenses. An employer spokesperson told the Daily Mail that “our top priority is to help guarantee a clean and exceptional revel in for our clients that empower them to revel in traveling anyplace and whenever they choose. “As this isn’t always the enjoy we want for any of our customers, we’ve got apologized to this purchaser and refunded them incomplete for the price of the alternative assets that they booked, in addition to for any relocation costs they incurred.”Finding the right hotel accommodations that will meet your needs and expectations is almost like finding a needle in a haystack. Not quite, but almost like it. If you’re the type of traveler with particular preferences, finding the hotel that will suit you well ahead of your scheduled trip would serve you best.
