An investigation by NordVPN found that British websites are ripping off UK tourists for all sorts of things that can be bought for much less when booked from abroad. The investigation, commissioned by NordVPN but carried out by an independent consultancy, was carried out between August 24 and September 6, 2022 and involved simultaneous searches over the south of Gran Canaria on identical products sold by the same provider from multiple servers. of countries.
The analysis found that British tourists booking and purchasing from websites in the UK were charged up to 97,5% more than if they ordered from abroad. The research looked at everything from car rentals and hotel reservations to theme park bookings. For example, if a British tourist wants to use TUI to book 14 nights in a hotel in the south of Gran Canaria for the month, it is cheaper to pretend to be from Germany and save about 340 euros, that is 10,8% of the total price.
For example, it found that using the Avis website from a New Zealand-based NordVPN server resulted in a whopping 49,4% savings for a 14-day rental. That's a saving that amounts to almost half the total price you would pay on the British website. It's not just car rental companies that have been caught up in this investigation. Then there are the major hotel booking companies that are also in it.
There are a number of reasons why companies may charge different prices for the same thing in different countries. Some countries impose higher taxes than others, while others will have higher running costs in one country than others. But the most common reason is that companies use complex algorithms to generate prices based on different consumer demands. VPNs work by hiding your real location and allowing you to connect to an external server. These servers can be located anywhere in the world and once connected, websites like the ones mentioned above will think the user is there too and show them their prices for that country.
