Travel companies cannot afford to relax – Comment by Jeremy Skidmore

The worm has turned. The era of ‘compensation culture’ has gone and, at last, travel companies can relax, can’t they?

Not exactly.

It’s certainly good news for tour operators that, at last, we are seeing commonsense when it comes to paying compensation to holidaymakers.

A few years ago, when Anne Robinson was in her pomp fronting Watchdog, it seemed that everyone was writing to complain about their fortnight in the sun.

Whatever was wrong, from poor accommodation to delayed flights and even lack of sunshine, the poor old customer was suffering a ‘holiday from hell’.

Travel companies were reluctant to take on this consumerism and paid compensation out at a drop of a hat.

Fifty quid here, £100 there, it wasn’t worth fighting claims, however ridiculous they were, as the huge weight of public opinion raged against ‘rip-off’ tour operators.

But the travel companies ended up paying twice – not only were they forking out compensation but their public liability insurance went through the roof.

Recently they’ve been fighting back against some of the more dubious claims and getting a sympathetic hearing from the courts.

There has been a change in attitude from judges. They feel tour operators should take reasonable steps to ptrotect clients but cannot be held responsible for everything that happens abroad.

The tragic case of a man who drowned on holiday in a lagoon while on a JMC holiday was a turning point. His wife sued the company, but lost, as the judge ruled that JMC could not be responsible for the different depths in a lagoon.

All this does not mean the travel industry can relax. Standards need to be higher than ever because ABTA still receives around 18,000 compliants a year from holidaymakers and, by the way, actively encourages people to pursue a claim if they have a legitimate case. They just do not want to see ‘ambulance chasers’ winning pay-outs.

There’s also been an increase in the number of ‘class actions’ taken by groups of holidaymakers against tour operators, particularly when a lot of people have been taken ill with food poisoning.

It’s easy for the travel industry to be dismissive of class actions and of Brenda Wall, who founded Holiday TravelWatch anmd campaigns on behalf of people who have suffered substandard holidays, but it should be remembered that many of them have a very strong case.

It should also be remembered that the travel industry has brought a lot of problems on itself.

When most people think of MyTravel – or Airtours as it was called – they recall losses of £910 million. But long before that they were attacked for using an aircraft know as the ‘flying pig’. In addition many tour operators offered substandard accommodation in popular resorts.

Since then most companies, including Airtours, have massively cleaned up their acts and offer holidaymakers a genuinely good deal.

Those standards need to be maintained to make sure there’s not a rise in genuine compliants from disgruntled punters.   

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