A New York woman planning to visit southern China booked into the
luxurious White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou through their website; or so she
thought. When she arrived there, they had no record of her booking.
It turned out that rather than the Guangshou White Swan, she had booked
into
the White Swan
boarding house in Yorkshire.
The website for the Guangzhou White Swan displays a picture of a towering white building, and states that it is set among beautiful banyan gardens on historical Shamian island overlooking the Pearl River. In contrast, the website for the White Swan in Yorkshire shows pictures of an old house, the Yorkshire countryside and a map of Britain. "It's quite a surprising mistake to make to be honest, because the website says things like how to get there from places like London, which may suggest to some people that it's not actually in Guangzhou," said Teters.