Only locals need apply ... is it fair to charge visitors more than locals? Photograph: Alamy
Pity the car park attendant in Llanberis, north Wales, who has reportedly been caught offering a 50% discount to Welsh speakers. The attendant, who worked at the town's Royal Victoria Hotel, has apparently charged English-speakers £4 to park their car; but if you happen to have asked the price to park in the language of Catatonia and Dylan Thomas, it will have cost you only £2. Today's Guardian says the attendant is to be replaced with a machine.
Yes, of course it's unfair. But the bilingual attendant was really only enforcing an unwritten law of the travel industry: that English is the most expensive language in the world to speak.
On holiday in Crete this spring, I arrived in an upmarket hotel in the port of Rethymno and was offered a lovely double room for 68 euros. I thought it was a bargain - but just how much of a bargain only became clear three days later, when, travelling back via the same hotel on a less busy night, I was told that an identical room would cost 73 euros.
The difference? The first time I spoke Greek; the second time, English. Staff freely admitted there was a "Greek rate", and reckoned I'd probably been given the discount the first time because it looked like I was making an effort.
Of course, there are laws about this sort of thing. But as an incentive for tourists to learn a few words of the local language when they head abroad, it can't be bad. Can it?
