Advertisements from three travel firms have been banned for making misleading claims about the “eco-friendliness” of their holidays. Advertisements from Thomas Cook, loveholidays and DialAFlight broke advertising guidelines by using terms such as “eco resort”, “eco hotel” and “eco resort” without adequately explaining the basis for these environmental claims.
DialAFlight’s meta advert, shown in July at Jumeirah’s Saadiyat Island Resort, read: “Reconnect with yourself and your surroundings at our eco-conscious resort…”. DialAFlight said the “eco-resort” claim was taken from a fact sheet provided by the hotel, and the hotel provided the ASA with a list of environmental initiatives and activities taking place at the resort.
Two Google outdoor vacation ads, also in July, advertised “Green Garden Eco Resort” and “Family Eco Hotel Marvida.”
The online travel agent explained that in both cases, the term “Eco” was part of the hotel’s name and not an environmental statement formulated, adopted or endorsed by loveholidays.
Thomas Cook explained that “Sandos Caracol Eco Resort” changed its name in July 2025 and the travel firm took steps to block “Sandos Caracol Eco” as a search term to prevent it from appearing in future searches.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that consumers were likely to interpret claims to mean that a property had environmental features or benefits, but were not given enough information to understand what these were.
ASA Director of Complaints and Investigations Miles Lockwood said: “For people who want to make more environmentally conscious choices when booking a holiday, it is important that they can trust the claims they see in advertising.
“Today’s rulings make it clear that if a hotel or resort is described as ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘eco-friendly’, advertisers need to be clear about what that means so people have the information they need to make informed choices about where to book.”