When booking a hotel, it’s perfectly normal to be offered extras for an additional fee. For example, you may have the opportunity to prepay for excursions offered by the hotel or for additional accommodations in the room.
However, according to Jaclyn D’Esposito, founder of boutique travel agency Heartfelt Travel (@heartfelttravel), you may also get the opportunity to book something else entirely—“fart.”
In a video with over 1.7 million views, D’Esposito shows a hotel booking page for a client. The hotel offers the usual options upon checkout, such as a bottle of wine and a massage. It also offers “fart.” According to the page, “fart” can be booked free of charge.
“What is ‘fart’? For free?” D’Esposito asks. “Should I book the client a ‘fart’? Like, what is happening?”
@heartfelttravel I couldn’t pull the tigger guys I’m sorry 😭 #travelisaprivilege #heartfelttravel #wheretostaysputhoffrance #southoffranceitinerary #southoffrancetravelguide ♬ original sound – Heartfelt Travel
Immediately, commenters began to speculate as to what exactly happened that would lead “fart” to be a selectable option on a hotel’s website.
“When a dev joke accidentally goes to prod,” wrote a user.
“Haha some poor programmer put that in as a test entry and it got missed when all of the rest were deleted,” echoed another. “I hope he somehow finds out…”
“This was definitely part of the template they were working with and never went back to add or delete,” offered a third.
However, the real answer is a little less exciting. The hotel in which D’Esposito is booking appears to be located in a country that speaks French. In French, the word for “pet” can occasionally be translated as “fart.”
This would explain why the image has two dogs, and why the description of the service says that “the rate is per day and pet.”
D’Esposito confirmed this in an email to the Daily Dot, saying that the hotel in question was the Les Bords de Mer in Marseille, France.
“Yes, fart in English = pet in French, which is why there was a picture of golden retrievers,” she said. “Someone alerted the hotel to the translation error, so it is now fixed on the website.”
“This was really late at night when I was finalizing some hotel reservations for clients in France, and I thought my mind was playing tricks on me!” she added.
No matter why “fart” was listed on the website, that didn’t stop users on TikTok from finding humor in the situation.
“For the love of god, BOOK THE FART!!” exclaimed a user.
“Book it, then call the front desk an hour later to check your order status,” shared a second.
“It’s a vacation, you should splurge,” joked an additional TikToker.
