02/18/2008Acrobat (pdf, 65 KB)
Barcelona chosen as the city with the cleanest taxis The friendliest taxi drivers, the people of Malaga London is consolidated as the city with the most expensive taxis
The taxi becomes the preferred means of transport for 57.7% of Spaniards when traveling from the airport or station to their hotel, according to data extracted from the latest study carried out by Hotels.com, the most visited hotel booking website in the world. At a time when governments are allocating more and more funds to public transport, the taxi continues to emerge as the most used means of locomotion when we travel. This survey has also revealed the preferences of taxi customers and their most anecdotal experiences on board them.
The most voted means of transport after the taxi in the transfer from the airport is the metro, with a percentage of 10.6%, followed closely by the rental car, with 9.3%. The train and bus are next, with 4.7% and 3.9%. Among the remaining responses, 12.5% decide to use any other alternative transport and only 1.3% arrive at the hotel taking a walk. However, Spaniards are at the bottom of the ranking in terms of the use of the taxi for this type of trip. The English are the ones who make the most use of it, using it 70%, followed by French, with 67%, and Germans with 60%.
Within our country, the taxis of each city stand out for very different criteria. The best positioned in terms of cleanliness are those of Barcelona, with 25% of the votes, although they were selected as the worst in terms of price and friendliness with 37.9% and 20.7% respectively. Zaragoza with 66.7% was selected as the city with the dirtiest taxis, Santiago de Compostela (29.2%) as the one with the best prices; Malaga took the cake in terms of friendliness in the treatment (31.1%) but suspended in terms of the quality of its driving (33.3%).
The opposite happened to The Valencian taxis, which were the ones that obtained the best votes in terms of driving quality (18.8%) but were the worst in terms of safety, with 33.3% of the votes; conversely, Bilbao taxis were the ones that obtained the most votes for their safety (20%); although, on the other hand, customers considered that they were the ones with the worst knowledge of the area, with 50% of the votes. Taxis in Madrid were the best positioned in terms of availability (18.3%) and in terms of knowledge of the city (26.8%). On the other hand, Seville was placed as the worst city in the availability category, with 18.2% of the votes.
Outside our borders, spaniards believe, with regard to the cost of this type of public transport, that the taxis with the best prices were found in Los Angeles and Bangkok, both cities with 50% of the votes and, on the contrary, the most expensive turned out to be London taxis, according to 61.1% of respondents.
Some useful tips
The study has also collected the opinions of users and some of the tips that can help us the most to move by taxi through different cities. The Germans recommend that we ask the locals for the usual prices and that we try to agree on the fare from the beginning, the French advise to write down the license plate or license number of the vehicle, just in case the English point out that it is advisable to sit in the back of the taxi, and among Spaniards we find that many agree with all these tips, although there are also customers who consider that when you go on a trip you should enjoy each situation as part of the adventure.
Unforgettable experiences: kidnappings and reunions
Through this study, travelers from hotels.com have related countless anecdotes, both good and bad; Worthy of note, among the bad ones, we find for example, that of a traveler who was almost kidnapped by the taxi driver in Bangkok. It also seems that the experiences of the respondents in South America were not very safe when taking a taxi, since another unfortunate case was that of a traveler in Venezuela who was robbed at gunpoint, inside the taxi in which he was going; or another case in which a traveler took a taxi with his companion in Buenos Aires, put his suitcases in the trunk and, as soon as they were going to get into the taxi, it started at full speed, in the purest movie style, taking the suitcases with him.
On the other hand, the general opinion of places like Cairo, Marrakech or Turkey is that taxi drivers have a reputation for going crazy on the road (and always try to get more money than they owe for the race), although a client also says that in Brussels the taxi driver drove more than 100km per hour with one hand and shouting on the mobile; so reckless drivers are found all over the globe.
But it seems that it's not all bad experiences. Thus, travelers also tell stories such as that of a customer in Tokyo who forgot his guitar in the taxi, and the taxi driver went to pick him up at the hotel where he was staying simply to return it; or some travelers in Granada, in which the taxi driver, seeing that he could not find the place where they wanted to be transferred, began to liven up the race singing fandangos, as if it were the "Pescailla" without charging them the journey for not knowing the way.
Although the most endearing story told in the study was that of a client who took a taxi in Buenos Aires, and told the driver, who was around 80 years old, to take him down a certain street, he asked him to please not go through that street since it brought him memories of his childhood and his best friend, the one I hadn't seen for many years. In the end it turned out that the taxi driver's best friend was this traveler's own father!, thus confirming the phrase that "this world is a handkerchief".
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About Hotels.com
Hotels.com is the world's most visited hotel booking website (comScore Media Metrix). Operating in the main markets and with a dedicated team, www.hotels.com offers the widest range of hotels in the sector with more than 80,000 accommodations. In addition, it guarantees the best price in more than 39,000 hotels, advised individually by the team of experts of Hotels.com. If the user finds the same room at a lower price, Hotels.com will pay the difference. Customers can make their reservations directly online or by calling one of the multilingual Customer Service Centers by calling 902 02 61 13.
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