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TOURISM

‘We were charged €600 for lunch’: Tourists describe yet another Rome rip-off

After a restaurant in one of Rome's tourist hotspots hit the headlines for overcharging, another visitor shares his own horror story.

'We were charged €600 for lunch': Tourists describe yet another Rome rip-off
Check the menu before sitting down to eat in Rome. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Kennith Ng, who lives in Hong Kong, told The Local that in August he and his wife were charged more than €600 for a plate of pasta, a roasted fish and a bottle of water shared between them at Antico Caffè di Marte, the same Roman restaurant that was recently accused of charging two Japanese tourists over €400 for two plates of fish, spaghetti and water.

READ ALSO: Japanese tourists slapped with €430 bill for fish and spaghetti

In Ng's case, the damage was even worse: €468.60 for just two dishes and a litre of water, plus a compulsory “tip” of €137.

That brought their total bill for a two-person lunch without wine to an eye-watering €605.60.

The couple protested but eventually paid the charge in full after being threatened by the restaurant's staff, said Ng and his wife, Bobo Chan, who have reported the restaurant to the Italian police.

Chan told officers that several waiters surrounded her and her husband and subjected them to “menacing behaviour”, telling them they would not be allowed to leave without paying, according to a copy of the police statement seen by The Local. 

After filing a police report within hours of the incident of August 24th, the couple emailed a further complaint to the Guardia di Finanza – Italy's financial crime force – upon their return home. The police in Rome also advised the couple to contact the Italian consulate in Hong Kong, but “we have heard nothing from Italy so far,” Ng told The Local on Monday.

He advises other visitors to do their research before eating out in Italy, since subsequent searches online revealed many similar complaints about Antico Caffè di Marte, which is rated “Terrible” on TripAdvisor.

The restaurant, located near Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican in the heart of Rome's tourist centre, has been repeatedly accused of serving customers large quantities of seafood or steak without explaining that they'll be billed by weight.

While the restaurant's owner told the Italian press in connection with another incident that the “menu is clear“, Chan said that the charges listed on their receipt were “totally different” to what they had understood from the menu displayed outside.

Italian law requires that restaurants display their prices clearly and accurately. But like in tourist hotspots everywhere, establishments in some of Italy's most heavily visited areas are notorious for finding ways to overcharge unwitting visitors.

Other notorious cases include an €80 bill for a couple of burgers and three coffees near the Vatican, a €1,100 meal for four at a restaurant in Venice, a single cone ice cream that cost €25 in Florence, and a €42 check for three gelati and some water near the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

READ ALSO: Ripped off: Italy's worst tourist scams and how to avoid them

Such rip-offs are, thankfully, the exception, but they risk damaging the reputation of Italy's entire tourism industry. 

As Ng says, honest restaurants also the victims when unscrupulous businesses take advantage. “I actually had a very lovely holiday in Italy by and large, we had some unforgettable memories and met so many lovely locals,” he told The Local. “In fact, most of the restaurants in Italy are second to none, their passion for food is so touching, just beautiful!

“Therefore, I feel so sorry for those lovely restaurants' owners as it is unfair to them.”

Have you been ripped off while travelling in Italy? Email us and tell your story.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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