Hotel staff should be the ones who enforce sun lounger policy to avoid rows with other guests.

That's according to travel expert Eoghan Corry, who said the problem is growing with the size of resorts.

He told Moncrieff the issue is not easily solved.

"Hotels are getting bigger, I've seen resorts growing, [but] the number of sun loungers around the pool is not growing," he said.

"We had a television ad, way back in 1993, where this suave Brit drops his Union Jack towel from a height, and all the Germans have to go running as it lands on a sun lounger four or five storeys below him.

"We had an incident a few years ago where somebody got 20 German towels at an Italian resort and set fire to them.

"He was arrested by the Italian police but not charged".

Eoghan said some hotels try their best to implement such policies.

"It became a point of summer popular culture that there was this war, particularly between the Brits and the Germans, as to getting their towels on the loungers," he said.

"Lots of hotels have tried to implement policies that rotate the loungers, but they always run into trouble.

"There's usually a 15-minute rule; if you haven't returned to your lounger in 15 minutes the hotel staff - in some places - are asked to pick it up.

"What happens [is] if one holidaymaker picks up someone else's beach towel, you can end up with a bit of a row".

An aerial view of a swimming pool as a man relaxes on a lounger in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in April 2019. Picture by: Eugene Sergeev / Alamy Stock Photo

Eoghan said different places have different rules.

"In Vegas of all places... I left my bathrobe and my towel on the lounger, went for a quick dive and came back and it was all immediately gone.

"Then they tried to charge me $80 for a new bathrobe - it took a bit of an argument - but it's not a pleasant argument to get into.

"Everyone's supposed to be on holidays enjoying, relaxing around the pool - and I've seen very close to stand-offs over loungers.

"People taking somebody else's lounger, it's usually somebody arriving, dumping all the stuff off the lounger and taking it over for themselves".

Eoghan explained there is a reason behind some of this rivalry.

"The way package holidays worked from about 1948 on, the early descend on resorts in Benidorm and places like that, the two big markets to move in numbers with the charter flights and all of that were the Brits and the Germans," he added.

Main image: Two sun loungers with 'Reserved' towels next to a hotel swimming pool in August 2013. Picture by: Gruffydd Thomas / Alamy Stock Photo