Beware crying wolf over holiday sickness complaints
Assuming that holiday illness complaints are a scam could be a ‘recipe for disaster’, says Professor Rodney Cartwright and Dr Esteban Delgado.
“Not another client complaint of stomach upset whilst on holiday. We know it is probably another scam. Let’s ignore it for a while.”
This can be a recipe for disaster. It is true that there has been a major upsurge in unsubstantiated claims for recompense due to a stomach upset whilst on holiday.
This has been particularly true in association with Spanish resorts and has featured in the British press with pictures of vans advertising the services of claims legal firms.
In the 1970s and 1980s some resorts in Spain and Portugal were associated with medically proven high rates of stomach upsets amongst British travellers. Data from tour operators in the 1980s revealed rates of above 50% in some well known resorts.
This data was collected by way of a question regarding health on the Client Satisfaction Questionnaires (CSQ) used by major tour operators. The same question is used by all the participating operators and records stomach upsets on holiday which last for more than 24 hours.