A hotel company has been fined £8,000 for falsely claiming to be members of several tourism organisations.

The Farrars Hotel carried logos of associations it was not a member of on its notepaper and boards.

Magistrates heard yesterday it claimed to be with the English Tourist Board, the RAC, Ashley Courtney and the British Hotels and Restaurants Association.

But when East Sussex trading standards officials visited in July 2001, they found membership of each had lapsed.

It was only a member of the AA, which had given the 45-bed hotel in Wilmington Gardens, Eastbourne, a two-star rating.

Officials for the hotel company, Kolbeh GMBH Ltd, pleaded guilty to four counts of making a false statement on January 7 this year.

Yesterday the company was fined £8,000 after it was claimed it had deceived customers.

Vanessa Caira, prosecuting, said: "Trading standards takes matters of this type very seriously. People have the right to know that the information provided by a hotel is correct."

Greg Szanto, defending, said the hotel had two stars from the AA.

He said the ratings for the other organisations were the same.

He said: "This falls low in the seriousness of any scale because no harm was done to the public.

"It has been accepted that the other ones should not have been used and they have now been removed."

He said the hotel had been loss-making for the past three years and urged magistrates not to hand down a harsh fine.

Magistrates fined the company £2,000 for each of the four counts, totalling £8,000, plus £875.87 costs.

Wednesday March 19 2003