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Cruises top list of complaints to personal injury law firm
Nearly a third of holiday complaints reported to personal injury law firm Irwin Mitchell last year were for cruises.
Cruises holidays accounted for 32% of cases dealt with by the firm, followed by hotel stays in the Dominican Republic (14%), Egypt (12%), Turkey (11%), and Tunisia (8%).
The law firm has called on cruise lines and tour operators to do more to improve hygiene standards and prevent bacterial illnesses such as salmonella, E-coli and cryptosporidium.
Suki Chhokar, a partner and head of the international personal injury team at Irwin Mitchell, said: “Unfortunately, the same issues, such as poor food preparation and storage and unclean swimming pools are responsible for the majority of the cases we deal with.
"It is worrying that many of the destinations and indeed many of the individual hotels and cruise liners featured in our research have appeared in our previous research. We are especially concerned about the number of cruise passengers still falling ill on board cruise liners.
“Tour operators and cruise line operators should take seriously their responsibility to their customers to ensure that the appropriate standards of hygiene, health and safety are maintained."
In 2014, holidays to Turkey accounted for 28% of cases, followed by cruises (17%), Spain (15%), Egypt (12%) and Greece (7%).
In 2013, cruises accounted for almost 27% of cases dealt with by Irwin Mitchell’s specialist lawyers, followed by Turkey (17%), Egypt (15%), Dominican Republic (12%) and Spain (10%).
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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