If you want to go on holiday to Saint-Tropez, you should bring money with you – and not too little. The coastal town on the French Riviera attracts the rich and famous, so the prices in hotels, restaurants and bars are also impressive.
The less well-heeled might have a hard time getting a seat in some places. Apparently, some operators carry out checks on potential guests before making reservations. Among other things, they check how much money the respective guests spent on their last visit to the restaurant or how much the tip was. This is reported by the French newspaper “Nice Matin”, citing insiders from the scene. One of them summarized the situation as follows: “It’s basically this: Is someone likely to spend a lot of money, or is someone a small fish?”
If the last visit did not meet the expectations of the restaurant, the reservation will be rejected, they say. Apparently the reports are correct, at least Sylvie Siri, the mayor of the port town, which actually has only 3,600 inhabitants, also commented: “These allegations are extremely shocking for me, because unfortunately they are true,” she said. She and the entire city council are “completely opposed to such despicable practices” as they would “ruin the image of the city”. Linking the hospitality of guests to reviews of the spendability of previous visits, Siri sees as “blackmail”.
What worries her most is the discrimination against the local population, who can no longer afford to eat out: “We’ve already been evicted from our homes and soon we’ll be evicted from our restaurants as well.” In the case of inquiries that do not meet the operator’s expectations, the guests are turned away – there will be no more free tables for the next few months. In other cases, reservations were effectively sold by requiring guests to pay an amount of money in advance or setting a minimum consumption value.
Mayor Sylvie Siri wants these practices to stop as soon as possible. At a meeting with restaurant owners at the end of the holiday season, she wants to remind them “of their responsibility”. She is already examining whether it is possible to take action against the behavior of the restaurants – for example due to data protection violations. If this is confirmed, some bars could even lose their license.
Sources: “Nice Matin” / “Guardian”
Watch the video: Often you are not sure whether and if so how much you should tip for services. There are different rules as to how much is appropriate and where. Here comes the tipping etiquette.
