Man-made or Natural Disasters create a unique set of problems or difficulties for holidaymakers in their chosen destination.  We have long campaigned on this issue, calling for an open discussion of the problems that are presented by these holiday destinations.  We present a number of holiday complaints received on this issue in 2008!  We have only reproduced these stories from our e mail contacts.  These holidaymakers stories have been presented to the EU Commission in our campaigning reports!  The stories have been left largely unedited; they are in the words of the holidaymakers who have contacted us.  The names of travel companies have been removed because we consider the story or the experience of the holidaymaker is central! Read More

It is essential that when you are making your travel arrangements that you book with an agent, operator or arranger who carries membership of one of the following organisations. By placing your booking with such a member, you may be ‘buying’ extra consumer protection through their bonding arrangements (if they exist), should an element of your travel fail.  You may be able to benefit from the additional facilities of a complaints process should that agent, operator or arranger fail to deliver timely responses to your complaint. In certain circumstances you can invoke an arbitration process to settle your dispute. Below are brief summaries for each of the organisations along with an appropriate link for further information. Read More

Well the Burmese authorities finally showed their true colours – the arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi  - and holiday companies and apologists for this regime still want tourists to visit this country?  Here are the Google results for holidays currently for sale to Burma! Disbelief! Read More

I see that the travel press is all a buzz about ‘risk destinations’ and how you wouldn’t know that there was a problem when you get there!  One such article ‘How troubled is Thai Tourism?’ analysed the ‘risk’ of travelling to Thailand and provided a travel industry view on the risks to a holidaymaker, however, the article did not raise the thorny issue of the effect of such troubles on the travel insuarance product and whether a holidaymaker would be covered or not!  There is clearly concern growing about the Thailand destination; this is such an important issue, as holidaymakers have discovered, travel to certain destinations (Kenya, Cuba, Mexico, Thailand) has or could potentially leave them without insurance cover! Read More

I was astonished to read in the Travel Section of Saturday’s ‘Independent’ newspaper’, an advertisment by a major tour operator, offering an ‘unbelievable value’ holiday to Sri Lanka!  In the same paper (page 2) I could see the headline ‘UN brokers exit strategy for children trapped in war zone’!  Pictures showed Tamil children queuing for food and a shocking picture of a malnourished child, showing ’scenes of utter misery and hardship, a government health official in the region claimed that at least five children were dying every day from diarrhoea and malnutrition and that many mothers are too emaciated to nurse their babies’.  This is a purely personal observation (I respect those who differ from me and I am sure that there will be those who state that their visit will help the very people in question etc etc), even if I decided to take the risk of travelling to such a country, I could not in all conscience travel to a country with such misery and ‘enjoy myself ‘ in a five star all-inclusive hotel with all that going on up the road so to speak! Read More

HolidayTravelWatch notes with interest the report in The Sun Newspaper – ‘Global holiday terror risk soars’.  It raises the statistic created by the US Government, that there has been a 24% increase, since 2006, on the number of people killed by terrorist attacks.  It cites the fact that, ‘Many attacks happened in popular holiday spots such as India, Thailand and Sri Lanka’.  It is not clear from the article how many of those killed were in fact tourists, however, it does raise the question that ‘terrorism’ exclusion clauses should be ’scrapped’. Read More

This article first appeared in the Travel-Zine of HolidayTravelWatch; Get’Away – Your Route to Travel Rights. It examines the role of Travel Insurance where risk factors intervene during holidays. Such risk factors can be either man made or arise during a severe weather event. Read More