All-inclusive holidays: why Brits get diarrhea all the time on package holidays

by time news

2023-05-25 15:17:00

ZAdmittedly, it’s a nasty thing to have an upset stomach in the summer heat while on vacation, of all places. It can happen – maybe it was an ice cube made from tap water that was not entirely clear, or a melon that was too ecologically fertilized, and you were hit.

Usually this is relatively harmless and with stomach medication, light food and a mixed bag of rehydration powder it is quickly over.

Not so with British package holidaymakers. They often complain about bad buffet food in all-inclusive hotels, and then complain about persistent traveler’s diarrhea, which spoiled their vacation. Do UK tourists have a particularly sensitive stomach?

Destinations with the most diarrhea complaints

Traveler’s diarrhea is certainly a big issue in the UK. There are always rankings of popular travel destinations where vacationers are most likely to get sick. For this purpose, primarily British insurance claims or complaints in travel forums about diarrhea and food poisoning are evaluated.

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For example, the British “Forbes Advisor”, in cooperation with a comparison forum for insurance companies, has just listed the top travel destinations where holidaymakers apparently complain the most about gastrointestinal infections.

In the Caribbean, people like to have fruit for breakfast – including a view of palm trees and the sea

In the Caribbean, people like to have fruit for breakfast – including a view of palm trees and the sea

Quelle: Getty Images/Moment RF/Anton Petrus

They are all strongholds of British package travelers listed by the “Forbes Holiday Sickness Index 2023”. Afar, complaints are particularly common: all-inclusive hotels in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada in Egypt, Sal and Boa Vista in Cape Verde, Playa del Carmen, Cabo San Lucas, and Tulum Cancún in Mexico and Bali in Indonesia.

On the Mediterranean there are hotel complexes in Benidorm on the Spanish Costa Blanca, on Mallorca and Menorca, on Mykonos in Greece and on the Atlantic on the Canary Island of Tenerife and in the Bulgarian town of Sunny Beach on the Black Sea.

More rights when it comes to UK package holidays

At first glance, one could think that these are mass goals: the hotels there don’t spend too much money on food, and the poor table manners of the many package holidaymakers do the rest, so that there is a striking accumulation of reported traveler’s diarrhea.

In fact, however, the British travel association Association of British Travel Agents points out that the rampant diarrhea among British holidaymakers only appeared out of nowhere a good ten years ago. Since then, the number of people claiming compensation from tour operators because of illness has skyrocketed.

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Bad start to vacation

At the end of 2012, British consumer law for package tours was expanded. Since then, British citizens can retrospectively claim compensation from the package tour operator for up to three years after the holiday. A gastrointestinal infection or food poisoning in the hotel is therefore a reason for more and more holidaymakers to claim compensation for illness as a result of negligence.

In the meantime, a lucrative travel defect industry has developed from this in Great Britain, which legally enforces compensation claims on behalf of consumers and collects at least 25 percent commission for this.

They are claims management services with apt names, Sickholiday.com For example, who have already put a damage calculator online. The procedure is very simple: You state how many days you have been ill. A complaint in a travel forum, in the hotel, for example, and a stomach medicine receipt from the pharmacy in the holiday destination are sufficient as simple proof.

Tour operators defend themselves against fraud

But this ploy backfires. The tour operators are increasingly defending themselves with investigations against possibly unjustified claims for damages and are taking the matter to court themselves.

A British holiday couple was sentenced to pay the equivalent of 8,500 euros to the tour operator TUI UK for “diarrhea fraud”. It later claimed to have contracted diarrhea at an all-inclusive hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. At the same time, the couple raved about the great hotel and the good food in travel forums.

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Hotel guests often take more than they eat at the buffet

A forty-year-old Briton even had to pay 21,000 euros to his organizer. He had stated that he had contracted diarrhea in a hotel in Boa Vista in Cape Verde because of poor hygiene and bad hotel food. The scam was exposed because he had posted photos on Facebook from his vacation in Cape Verde: alive and well, drinking beer and raving about the food.

In 2017, a 28-year-old British woman even had to pay the equivalent of 28,000 euros in damages to the organizer Thomson. She had claimed she fell ill from a spoiled hotel breakfast while on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh.

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Opinion Quirky service

However, the hotel management was able to document which guests had eaten in the breakfast room that day. The vacationer was therefore not among them. Instead, she praised the successful stay on various social media during her vacation.

Ergo: First rave about the trip and then demand compensation because you allegedly got sick in the hotel – this nasty scam spoils the holiday for all travelers.

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