A TRAVEL agent which claimed to be the only independent firm in a village has been rapped by the Advertising Standards Agency.

Colchester Travel, which trades as Dalton Travel, placed a newspaper advert which stated the firm is ‘Dunmow’s only specialist independent travel agent’.

But Flitch Travel challenged the claim, arguing it was misleading and could not be substantiated because it too is a specialist independent travel agent based in Dunmow.

Colchester Travel submitted a response to the challenge, stating Flitch Travel was actually a trading division of Hays Travel, which is based in Sunderland, and therefore could not be an independent agent.

But the challenge was upheld by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which said the claim was “misleading”.

It has ordered Colchester Travel not to use the advert in its form again and warned the firm to make sure it always has sufficient evidence to substantiate its marketing claims.

The ASA decision stated: “[We] acknowledged that there was no established definition of ‘independent’ within the travel industry.

“However, we noted from general observation that the term was commonly used by travel agents and travel industry bodies to refer to the fact that a travel agent was not tied to a major tour operator.

It added: “Furthermore, It added: “We considered that the average consumer was likely to understand the term ‘independent travel agent’ in the context of the wider travel industry, including the large tour operators with many local branches and vertically-integrated business models.

“We noted that the complainant held the status of AITO Special Independent Travel Agent – one of the requirements for this was that they should be independent of all major tour operators.

“We also noted that Hays Travel Ltd, of which Flitch Travel was a trading name, was not tied to any of the major UK tour operators.

“Because Flitch Travel was not tied to any major UK tour operators, it could be considered to have met the criteria for this definition of an ‘independent’ travel agent.

“On that basis, and given that we considered that both the complainant and the advertiser could be termed ‘specialist’ travel agents, we concluded that Dalton Travel’s claim to be ‘Dunmow’s only Specialist Independent Travel agent’ had not been substantiated and was misleading.”