Feedback requests for the most mundane tasks and the absurdity of fitness activities on holiday are under the microscope by our regular moaner.
€2 in the fountain
I suspect we have all heard the song Three Coins in a Fountain. Now it appears that Rome has brought in a €2 tourist charge to see the famous Trevi fountain. Is there nothing sacred these days or that people cannot wait to make a cheap buck from?
Considering that tourism is vitally important to Rome this is plain silly and petty and also messes up a song I enjoy. I love Rome, it’s a great city, but on this occasion city officials have made a bad decision.
Fit to drop
My inbox has its fair share of surveys. I suspect these keep the statistics and PR brigade happy and employed. One so called survey that caught my eye recently was claiming that 76% of travellers are now engaging in fitness activities on holiday and that trips are no longer about switching off, but pushing limits, building skills and coming home with a sense of achievement – really?
Eager to provide Gen Z and Millennials with ‘darecation’ inspo, the alleged experts at an organisation called Live Football Tickets carried out what is claimed to be a comprehensive index study which analysed the number of hiking trails, wellness retreats, and gyms to reveal Europe’s ‘darecation’ hotspots for 2026.
Firstly, regular readers will know that I loathe this type of language and survey speak - and I simply don’t buy it. For a start jogging and exercise is not my idea of a holiday - nor is it for my group.
I definitely do not need a silly survey to reveal that many in my group actually do want to switch off, have a cold beer or a chilled wine and relax.
Yes, we do interesting things, but looking up Europe’s ‘darecation’ hotspots for 2026 is not and will not be on my radar!
Toilet training
Feedback on your customer experience seems to pervade every centimetre of life these days and I do wonder if much of it has a real value. No matter what you do or buy, someone in a marketing department somewhere seems to want to have feedback on your experience. Whether it’s taking my smelly labrador to the poodle parlour for a wash and brush up, or how my cashier performed at M&S, or following breakfast at an airport one is asked, and sometimes hounded, to give feedback about one’s server.
No doubt some of this research is valuable and may increase standards, but equally, some of it falls into my category of deeply annoying.
Take the toilets at airports. One I use regularly has a panel of emoji style faces at the exit to the facilities with an invitation to push the appropriate face to show your satisfaction level.
Frankly, the last thing I want to do having washed my hands (if I can find a working tap) is to then push a smiley emoji face knowing that others have done the same without the appropriate level of hand hygiene that civilised people use.
Point one – a waste of time. Point two - unhygienic. My feedback is stop this silly research and make sure airport toilets are properly maintained and cleaned anyway.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily the views of the publisher.
