How hotels are stopping the 'dawn dash' for sunbeds after man wins payout

Holidaymakers have told the BBC about ways some hotels and resorts are cracking down on people reserving sun loungers with towels, after a man won a payout over the practice.

Last week, a man sued his tour operator for allowing the practice to take place while he was on holiday with his family in 2024, claiming he spent 20 minutes a day trying to find a sun lounger despite getting up at 06:00 every morning.

Judges at a district court in Hanover granted his family a €900 (£850) refund this week.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said the ruling acts as a "warning" to other tour operators and hotels that allow what is sometimes known as a "dawn dash".

Some hotels are enforcing sunbed allocation rules from check-in to deal with what has been called "sunbed wars".

The man had initially paid €7,186 (£6,211) to take his wife and their two children on the package holiday to Kos, an island in Greece.

In his arguments to court, he said his tour operator had failed to enforce the resort's ban on towel reservations.

He said loungers were unavailable even at 6am, and his children were forced to lie on the floor.

Though the tour operator had initially given him a refund of €350 (£302), judges in Hanover ruled the family was entitled to a refund of €986.70 (£852.89).

The judges acknowledged the travel company did not run the hotel and could not ensure every customer could access a sunbed at any given time.

But they said the operator did have an obligation to ensure there was an organisational structure to guarantee a "reasonable" ratio of sunbeds to guests.

The man, who the Daily Mail identified as David Eggert, a 48-year-old father of two and pilot from Dusseldorf, said in an interview on Sunday: "It was a big hotel, very fancy, with about 400 loungers.

"And all 400 loungers had towels on them.

"The people were not actually using the loungers, and the guests went into town or went back to bed and slept."

He said he believes it is a "very, very important ruling".

"When the holiday season starts in June and July and people face the same problem, they will say: 'Look, somebody sued a tour operator over this. I'll do the same'," he said.

"If thousands of holidaymakers start suing travel companies, the costs will run into the millions," he added.

Since the ruling went public earlier this week, other holidaymakers have told the BBC they have encountered similar issues.

Andrew Mills, from Newcastle, said he "spent most days away from the pool" on holiday in Zante last year because sunbeds "were all reserved with towels by 6am".

Another holidaymaker said he had just recently returned from Antalya in Turkey where the dawn reserving of sun loungers with towels had "really taken the shine out of the holiday".

But some resorts are coming up with solutions.

On visits to two popular holiday camps on France's Mediterranean coast, one man told us that "twice a day they sound a horn and if you're not at the lounger, all the items are removed to lost property".

Another told us he had visited a hotel in the Cypriot resort of Protaras which is "very strict" in enforcing a policy of "sunbed tenants" reserving a lounger for the whole holiday, and informing the hotel if they wished to change spot.

Colin Davison, 73, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, said a similar "sun lounger allocation" system in place at a resort in Paphos, Cyprus, had been "brilliant" when he visited.

According to the hotel's website, guests are allocated a sunbed upon check-in with guests allowed to request their "preferred spot" for the duration of their holiday which is decided "with fairness and attentiveness" - and guests can request to change their spot.

And Ashley Herman, from Watford, told the BBC: "At a hotel in Cyprus, the parasols are numbered. The hotel allocates them, one per two people, at the beginning of the holiday. Each sunbed goes either side of the parasol therefore a family of four gets two parasols and four sun beds. Voila."

But others shared more makeshift ways they had approached the issue, which are not advised.

"Once when in Ibiza, holidaymakers were putting towels on beds in the middle of the night," one said.

"It soon stopped when some lads were going down in the middle of the night and throwing all the towels into the pool."