Mayors lash out at "naff" advert

ANGRY mayors in seaside resorts in Languedoc-Roussillon have hit out at adverts for a holiday company that writes them off as "naff".

The mayors of Argelès-sur-Mer, La Grande-Motte and Palavas-les-Flots say the ad, for tour firm Degriftour, just repeats clichés from the past and they say the resorts are now places to go and be seen.

The ad shows a Parisian couple who get a postcard from the husband's sports coach and he asks his wife: "So where has this loser gone on holiday this time?"

They bet it would be somewhere "cheesy" like Palavas-les-Flots, La Grande-Motte or Argelès-sur-Mer - before reading the card and seeing the man is in the Seychelles. The crestfallen husband laments: "That means it means nothing to be rich."

But Jérôme Arnaud, boss at La Grande-Motte, told travel website Tourmag the company was "stuck 20 years in the past" the resort now had 70% of its rooms classed as four-star.

Now the company - which is owned by lastminute.com - has withdrawn the ad, saying it wanted to highlight the relaunched business, not taint the image of the resorts.