Man quoted £71k for a week’s holiday in Cornwall

‘A bit of a p*** take from some holiday home owners,’ says councillor

A father of three was allegedly quoted a price of £71,000 for a week’s stay in a holiday home in Cornwall.

Paul Nickerson, a Conservative councillor for East Riding in Yorkshire, was searching for a property that could sleep a family of five on the booking site Vrbo when he came across the costly cottage.

He took a screenshot of the listing, which was advertised as a “Wonderful, contemporary, waterside house” sleeping six across three bedrooms.

For a week’s stay from 14-21 August, the screenshot shows the holiday home’s price set at £10,232 per night – a cost of £71,627 in total for seven nights.

Mr Nickerson shared the screenshot on Twitter, writing: “£71 grand to take my kids for a week away in Cornwall – a bit of a p*** take from some holiday home owners and companies this year.”

He told the Daily Mail: “Everything I have seen is about 50 per cent more than their normal price.

“We have a young family so we normally do have a UK staycation as it's easier. But it's normally affordable for a family, but this was shocking.”

The listing has since been removed from the site.

However, other properties on Vrbo that are a similar size and available to book the same week cost around one 20th of the original listing.

For example, a beach house in Porth near Newquay, sleeping six in three bedrooms, costs £3,634 for the week, while a three-bedroom cottage not far from Plymouth costs £1,996.

A Vrbo spokesperson told The Independent: “As a two-sided marketplace, Vrbo connects holidaymakers and holiday-home hosts and as per our business model all contractual agreements are closed between the traveller and host directly. As all rental prices are set by the hosts themselves, Vrbo does not set, change or influence the property prices that a host chooses.

“The rental amount, payment terms and cancellation policies are stated on the booking page for each property and must be acknowledged and agreed to by all holidaymakers before a booking on Vrbo is possible.

“Our records show that the property in question has now been removed from the Vrbo website by the property owner.”

Earlier this year, The Independent reported that domestic holiday prices had soared by a third after international travel restrictions made foreign holidays nigh on impossible.

According to a snapshot investigation conducted by Which? in March, prices had risen by 35 per cent on average at beach hotspots around the country.

The consumer champion tracked the prices of 15 holiday lets in the top 10 most visited UK seaside destinations and discovered that, in every case, 2021 prices had increased compared to the previous summer.