Holiday accident or illness?

You are ready to relax and enjoy a stress-free break from everyday life.

You have counted down the hours, packed your luggage, travelled to the airport, boarded your aeroplane to an exotic foreign country and finally arrived at your destination.
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Within days your dream holiday has become your worst nightmare. Your holiday has been ruined by an accident due to lack of regular maintenance or illness due to poor hygiene, as a result of the hotel you are staying at.

If you suffered food poisoning for example salmonella, resulting in symptoms including stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea or if you have suffered a personal injury as a result of an accident due to negligence. You may be able to claim compensation.

You probably thought this was the end for your disastrous holiday, however, every cloud has a silver lining, as your tour operator is responsible for ensuring that the services provided within your package holiday are carried out with reasonable skill and care.

The Package Travel Regulations 1992 extended the tour operator’s liability to include responsibility for the hotel’s performance, which includes food preparation and property maintenance. However, in order to claim compensation your holiday must be considered as a “package holiday” therefore you must have pre-arranged a combination of at least two of the following transport, accommodation and other tourist service when purchasing a holiday at an inclusive price and when the it covers a period of more than 24 hours or overnight accommodation. Therefore, if you pre-booked your accommodation, resort transfer and flight through a tour operator which is controlled by the Package Tour Regulations 1992 and the Civil Aviation (Air Travel Organisers’ Licencing) Regulations 1995 you will have overcome the first hurdle.

The next hurdle can be the difficult on, which we can help you overcome. It has to be the tour operators suppliers fault for you to be able to claim from them. We can assist you in the following types of scenarios by obtaining supporting expert evidence:

• Undercooked or reheated report which is a breeding ground for bacteria;
• Food contaminated by insects, birds or other animals;
• Infected hotel staff handling food;
• Non-filtered water being used to make ice, and for washing salads etc;
• Contaminated swimming pools, containing parasites that are resistant to chlorine;
• Failure to maintain hotel grounds and furniture.

We have a Holiday Claims team at Nayyars Solicitors, who specialise in assisting with holiday illnesses or injury that are the result of a holiday illness or injury resulting from an accident on a package holiday that was no fault of their own. We can advise you whether you can make a claim based on the circumstances of your holiday. These cases are handled on a No Win No Fee Basis. We have secured compensation for clients who have been happy with the outcome of their claim.

Lauren Fairhurst.