United Kingdom
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Only one- fifth of holidays protected
Only around 20% of holidays are currently protected and customers are completely confused about the level of protection on offer, a conference heard this week.
Advantage Travel Centres chief executive John McEwan, a panellist at the Barclays Travel Forum in central London, revealed the vast majority of holidaymakers travel without financial protection.
“Only about 20% of holidays are protected and there is confusion about what is covered, which is amplified when something goes wrong,” he said.
“From a consumer’s point of view, it should be irrelevant how you book, you should be covered.”
Fellow panellist Stephen Park, the UK general manager of Norwegian Cruise Line, said even so-called industry experts were baffled by the current laws on which holidays were covered.
Currently, those buying packages are financially protected, but people buying flights and separate elements of a holiday are often not entitled to a refund if something goes wrong, unless they pay by credit card and claim through their card company.
“People don’t know what they’re covered for and this was grossly exposed by the ash crisis,” said Park. “A lot of people in the industry don’t properly understand it and I’d put my hand up to say I’m one of those.”
Speaking on a pre-recorded video that was shown at the event, former Hoseasons chief executive Richard Carrick said the Civil Aviation Authority should stop pursuing its action against Travel Republic over the way the company sells holidays without an air travel organiser’s licence, and instead concentrate on improving the system of financial protection.
“The whole thing is a complete mess,” he said.
Another panellist, Low Cost Travel group chief executive Paul Evans, said he did not expect the new coalition government to make any changes to the laws on financial protection in the near future.
“The confusion will continue because the government is unlikely to burden airlines with more costs in the form of bonding,” he said.
McEwan added: “It has to be a level playing field – you can’t regulate more against the travel industry and leave airlines outside of the system,” he said.
By Jeremy Skidmore
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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