Ecigs Abroad

[alvoram]

Just got back from 2 weeks in Tenerife (35 degrees back to this sucks, but that's another matter)

I didn't see a single person using Ecigs, and not a single shop selling them on our explorations. What is with this? Is this a business opportunity waiting to happen considering the numbers of brits that holiday on the island? Or is it a direct reflection on the price of cigarettes over there?

I know a lot of people say there is not much to be saved by using Ecigs, but I find that I am saving around £60 a week. With 20 cigs costing 2.50 EUR over there, is there much less motivation to use an alternative?

BTW I missed the TPD announcement whilst I was over there, what fantastic news to come back to.

[barrynorton]

Everything's slower on islands.

I only met one other person on Crete with one this year, and he was in our group.

I was told by a local hotelier, whom I've known for years, that they're bad for you though!

[Karma]

toots is vaping in Tenerife

allaboute-cigarettes.proboards.com/user/4768

The weather here is disgusting today

[lobeydosser]

I was in my local shop this morning buying my rolls.
The lass behind the counter, who knows I vape, was saying that yesterday they had a visitor in asking for e-cig refills and he got very angry that they did not sell them.
He was then demanding to know where he could buy some locally.
A thoroughly obnoxious character who should have known better than expect a village store to be selling, what is after all, a fairly exotic item.

We are about 40 miles from Glasgow by road and as far as I know, in the whole of that city there is only one brick & mortar e-cig shop.

While we here are a group of like minded vapers, on the ground we really are very much a minority item and village stores are only going to stock goods that are in demand all year round by the locals.

So it does not surprise me in the least that we see very few people vaping either away from the cities or indeed in foreign parts.

[alvoram]

Oct 22, 2013 13:04:39 GMT lobeydosser said:

I was in my local shop this morning buying my rolls.
The lass behind the counter, who knows I vape, was saying that yesterday they had a visitor in asking for e-cig refills and he got very angry that they did not sell them.
He was then demanding to know where he could buy some locally.
A thoroughly obnoxious character who should have known better than expect a village store to be selling, what is after all, a fairly exotic item.

We are about 40 miles from Glasgow by road and as far as I know, in the whole of that city there is only one brick & mortar e-cig shop.

While we here are a group of like minded vapers, on the ground we really are very much a minority item and village stores are only going to stock goods that are in demand all year round by the locals.

So it does not surprise me in the least that we see very few people vaping either away from the cities or indeed in foreign parts.

I completely understand and agree with what you say about villages and remote locations lobey, but playa is neither of these, there are more British shops, bars and restaurants in that area than in most large UK cities. You can buy just about about anything else, things you would never think of buying on your holidays. and there are more British Citizens there at any given time than in many UK cities, so it did surprise me to see nobody vaping and no shops, when nowadays there is one or more shops on most high streets, and E-cigs in most garages and news agents.

And I couldn't help wonder if this was mostly down to the price of cigarettes. I know on here, if we did a poll, most members are likely to be full on vapers, who enjoy the hobby, like you say, we're all like minded enthusiasts. However I'm sure if I did the same poll in the shop, a higher majority would be people who still smoke cigarettes, but use ecigs either as a cheaper alternative, or a more acceptable alternative for use in places like pubs and at work.

[lobeydosser]

I live in a "dry area". Yes I know, here in Scotland it is possibly highly unusual to find a place that has no pubs, but there you go!

Our "local", a couple of miles away, happens to be a Bistro and therefore serves food as well and they do allow vaping. A fact that I find odd, although I'd be the last one to complain!!

However if I go into my local town and go into a pub there, I would be most surprised if I saw someone vaping and I have yet to see anyone doing so in any of the other street restaurants or anywhere else.
The only person I have ever seen vaping in the street in the town was a convert from our own village.

I read topics that mention that of the 10 million smokers in the UK, one million have changed to vaping, but I see no evidence of that on the street.

And yes, I have seen e-gigs for sale in garages, motorway service outlets and supermarkets, but I feel that we have a long road to travel yet before e-cigs are for sale in all the outlets where cigarettes are for sale these days. If ever.

[alvoram]

Oct 22, 2013 13:45:22 GMT lobeydosser said:

I live in a "dry area". Yes I know, here in Scotland it is possibly highly unusual to find a place that has no pubs, but there you go!

Our "local", a couple of miles away, happens to be a Bistro and therefore serves food as well and they do allow vaping. A fact that I find odd, although I'd be the last one to complain!!

However if I go into my local town and go into a pub there, I would be most surprised if I saw someone vaping and I have yet to see anyone doing so in any of the other street restaurants or anywhere else.
The only person I have ever seen vaping in the street in the town was a convert from our own village.

I read topics that mention that of the 10 million smokers in the UK, one million have changed to vaping, but I see no evidence of that on the street.

And yes, I have seen e-gigs for sale in garages, motorway service outlets and supermarkets, but I feel that we have a long road to travel yet before e-cigs are for sale in all the outlets where cigarettes are for sale these days. If ever.

Sounds like a nice place to live Lobey.

I think the Midlands and Manchester area must have an unusually high amount of vapers and vape stores, as they both seem to be everywhere, even out in the sticks (Peak district) it seems there are many many vapers and stores. More shops opened in Derbyshire last month, including a new Lib Flights store, and Newsagents and corner shops are now stocking E-Liquid and eGo type kits, as well as the usual ciggalikes.

Still, I think I'd prefer the tranquillity of where you live

[DiscoDes]

I was on holiday on mainland Spain at the beginning of September and though where I went was not a big town 22,000 residents, they had a B&M shop (only spoke Spanish unfortunately) an I saw quite a few e-cig users (mainly Ego type) while I was there, used by locals & tourists and the only place that would not let me vape inside.............. a "British" bar!!!

[sammy13]

Hi folks just back from Southern Spain.
Regarding vaping etc, well, I saw one person using a disposable type thingy. A friend there who has had to stop smoking now uses an electronic cig -the small cig a like type whilst she is out at occasions, but finds it hard to get what she needs so she quit cold turkey, just uses the e-cig when alcohol and fun is involved.
Vaping is not restricted at all in Spain, however the local paper last week published an article stating that e- cigs are worse for you than smoking.
I could not believe the headline, read on ,and basically they- whoever they are have conducted tests including smokers, non smokers, ex smokers and vapers.
They say using e - cigs showed that it damages the air passages much more than smoking , never smoking, or giving up smoking.

[loobiebloo]

I was in Provence not long ago and found very flashy B&M shops in several small towns. It was quite a touristy area, Van Gough Trail featured highly in a couple, but we didn't go anywhere major or well-known. Didn't see anyone else vaping, though an awful lot of people smoking; nobody batted an eyelid or raised an eyebrow at me, however. If I'd still been smoking then I wouldn't have felt like a leper and tobacco was really cheap. I wasn't interested! Mild interest only, my thoughts being, 'if I still smoked I would have been well p****d of if I'd bought duty free'.

[toots]

Oct 22, 2013 11:39:31 GMT alvoram said:

Just got back from 2 weeks in Tenerife (35 degrees back to this sucks, but that's another matter)

I didn't see a single person using Ecigs, and not a single shop selling them on our explorations. What is with this? Is this a business opportunity waiting to happen considering the numbers of brits that holiday on the island? Or is it a direct reflection on the price of cigarettes over there?

I know a lot of people say there is not much to be saved by using Ecigs, but I find that I am saving around £60 a week. With 20 cigs costing 2.50 EUR over there, is there much less motivation to use an alternative?

BTW I missed the TPD announcement whilst I was over there, what fantastic news to come back to.

Hi alvoram, hope you enjoyed your holiday over here in Tenerife

Well, apparently you never saw me in Tenerife vaping away. Actually there are loads of us vaping over here, it's just you probably weren't in the right area/s to see us all. You probably just stuck to the tourist areas.

There are e-cig shops here, trust me, they are here. They didn't spring up until about 6 months ago, but they are dotted about in different places on the island and there have been quite a few new ones opening up in the last couple of months. Even the Indian shops have started stocking the liquids now coz they're losing sales on the cheap analogue cigs. Most of the e-cig shops are franchises of 'Good Smoke' I believe. The problem is they are sooooo expensive which is ludicrous when the analogue cigs are soooooo cheap

A lot of the locals/natives (Canarians) are vaping, however most of them live up in the mountain areas in the small villages so it is more than likely that you would not have encountered them in the touristic areas. I've met loads of the locals in the e-cig shops buying their liquids and they love vaping as much as we all do.

[toots]

Oct 22, 2013 15:34:14 GMT DiscoDes said:

I was on holiday on mainland Spain at the beginning of September and though where I went was not a big town 22,000 residents, they had a B&M shop (only spoke Spanish unfortunately) an I saw quite a few e-cig users (mainly Ego type) while I was there, used by locals & tourists and the only place that would not let me vape inside.............. a "British" bar!!!

Hahaha, sounds about right, a British bar not allowing you to vape inside

So far, here in Tenerife, I haven't come across any English or Spanish bar where you can't vape. Some of the bars where I live have actually set up stands on the bar for us to place our e-cigs in so they don't roll off the bar.

My local e-cig shop is actually based inside a large main supermarket would you believe and we all vape away at the different flavoured testers right there in the supermarket. Even the cafe inside the supermarket we can vape in along with the staff in the cafe vaping away too!!!

[toots]

Oh, and I forgot to add this too. I've got both English and Spanish TV channels, now I've not seen any advertisements for e-cigs on the English channels but on the Spanish channels we have adverts for e-cigs. I also heard on the English news channel (just once) that the UK was going to limit advertising for e-cigs, so maybe that's why there are no adverts on the UK channels. Go figure eh!!

[alvoram]

Oct 24, 2013 1:13:10 GMT toots said:

Hi alvoram, hope you enjoyed your holiday over here in Tenerife

Well, apparently you never saw me in Tenerife vaping away. Actually there are loads of us vaping over here, it's just you probably weren't in the right area/s to see us all. You probably just stuck to the tourist areas.

There are e-cig shops here, trust me, they are here. They didn't spring up until about 6 months ago, but they are dotted about in different places on the island and there have been quite a few new ones opening up in the last couple of months. Even the Indian shops have started stocking the liquids now coz they're losing sales on the cheap analogue cigs. Most of the e-cig shops are franchises of 'Good Smoke' I believe. The problem is they are sooooo expensive which is ludicrous when the analogue cigs are soooooo cheap

A lot of the locals/natives (Canarians) are vaping, however most of them live up in the mountain areas in the small villages so it is more than likely that you would not have encountered them in the touristic areas. I've met loads of the locals in the e-cig shops buying their liquids and they love vaping as much as we all do.

Hi Toots,

Thank you for your reply.

I love Tenerife, I like diverse places. Where one minute you can be in familiar surroundings with home comforts, yet dig a little further and you can experience other cultures. Which part do you live in Toots?

I honestly didn't see any shops. Though I didn't go inside any of those Indian electronic stores where they stand outside trying to push you, as far as I could see in, they all seemed to have the same stuff... Cameras, cheap tablets, mp3 players and so on. (if these are the Indian shops you mean?)

Whilst I didn't see anyone vaping, I did actually have a couple of drag artists at Decades near the strip (which was a bloody good night btw, Decades that is, not the strip, haha) tell me that they vaped when they saw me using one.

It's a shame the local prices are high though, especially as when you say, the cigarettes are ridiculously low in price.

[scaffman69]

Oct 22, 2013 11:39:31 GMT alvoram said:

Just got back from 2 weeks in Tenerife (35 degrees back to this sucks, but that's another matter)

I didn't see a single person using Ecigs, and not a single shop selling them on our explorations. What is with this? Is this a business opportunity waiting to happen considering the numbers of brits that holiday on the island? Or is it a direct reflection on the price of cigarettes over there?

I know a lot of people say there is not much to be saved by using Ecigs, but I find that I am saving around £60 a week. With 20 cigs costing 2.50 EUR over there, is there much less motivation to use an alternative?

BTW I missed the TPD announcement whilst I was over there, what fantastic news to come back to.

My friend has just set a shop up in northern Spain as all the locals found his e-cig amazing. Yes untapped deffo for the market he was looking at your ordinary Joe B