Don't end up in the wrong place warns website

City confusion: Budapest (above) is commonly confused with Bucharest. Photograph: Stuart Westmorland/Getty Images

KATE HOLMQUIST

MISTAKEN DESTINATION: WHEN YOU BOOK your holiday, it may be a good idea to look at a map.

New research by travelsupermarket.com has found that 95,000 British people have booked flights and hotels for the wrong destination.

Common mistakes include confusing Palma Majorca with La Palma in the Canaries; mixing up San José, California, with San José, Costa Rica; mistaking Amman in Jordan for Oman, the country; thinking that Bucharest and Budapest are the same place and – believe it or not – booking a holiday in Lisburn, Northern Ireland instead of Lisbon, Portugal.

One third of British 20- to 29-year-olds say that they’ve travelled to places they couldn’t pinpoint on a map. Least identifiable were Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt (47 per cent), Faro (31 per cent), Bangkok (23 per cent), Dubai (18 per cent) and Tenerife (7 per cent).

Men are twice as likely as women to book the wrong flights or hotels.

Bob Atkinson, travel expert at travelsupermarket.com, said: “It may cause a few laughs, but it is worrying that a considerable proportion of the British public don’t know where in the world they are when they are on holiday, especially when so many of us go back to the same places year after year.”

Travel agents make mistakes too, confusing Bordeaux (BOD) with Bodrum (BJV), Los Angeles (LAX) with Lagos (LOS) and San Juan (SJU) with San José (SJO).