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First Choice Travel Agent which in recent years has earned itself an unflattering saying from some unhappy customers, First Choice Travel Agents should be your last choice, are being sued by an unhappy family who said their holiday of a lifetime was turned into a holiday from hell after booking a Caribbean Holiday with First Choice travel agents.
The Doyles family which were looking forward to their dream Caribbean holiday where they were expecting a relaxing week in the lap of luxury but instead find themselves in a nightmare where they could not wait to get home from their holiday from hell.
'First Choice Holiday Was Hell' |
Instead of an exciting luxury holiday the Doyles instead became ill with crippling bouts of diarrhoea and sickness and also claimed their accommodation was dirty and found cockroaches in their fridge and under their beds in their four star resort. The family also claim their buffet was picked over by birds leaving the family avoiding the food.
TUI UK which runs First Choice are being sued by Paul Doyle, 40 and his family after their holiday from hell at the Behia Principe Hotel in San Juan, Dominican Republic at the end of July 2007.
Paul told the Herald newspaper: “We decided ‘here we are, we’ve never been to the Caribbean before, we can fit a five or six day holiday in’. For a six day holiday it was a bit of a distance but we just wanted to get away.” But Mr Doyle, who works for Shop Direct as an administrator, added: “We were all quite ill. “The place looked like it did in the brochure. But it was dirty. “We had cockroaches in the fridge. My wife hates cockroaches. These were in the fridge, a couple of them at the bottom. “We went into our room and saw them there. We had ants outside as well. The staff ended up leaving a spray in our room and we had to sort it out ourselves.” Paul Doyle who went away with his wife Dorothy, 41, son Paul Jnr, 11, and brother Gerard, 42, said he could not believe that the resort’s electricity used to cut out periodically. According to Paul, the family became ill after just two days at the four star all-inclusive resort. “I think the bug that we all got must have come from where we all ate. It was all open and had birds flying round it. “When I think about it the birds were eating everything.” According to reports it is not only Mr Doyle and his family who are suing TUI, well-known law firm Irwin Mitchell have a total of 44 holidaymakers who are suing the popular travel agents. In a writ lodged with the High Court, barrister David Allan QC said: “In the summer of 2007 the hotel was subject to repeated and/or prolonged episodes of gastric illness amongst guests. “None of the claimants ate outside the hotel prior to falling ill and it will be alleged that the majority of their infections were bacterial and caused by poor standards of hygiene and food handling.” The writ also alleges there were mice and rats in the hotel and it smelled of sewage and urine. The swimming pool is also described as “murky” and some hotel guest’s say they saw vomit and bird droppings in the pool. A TUI spokeswoman said: “First Choice can confirm that the allegation of illness surrounding the Gran Bahia Principe in Dominican Republic is currently subject to a legal process. “The claims made by the Doyle family currently remain outstanding and no liability has been admitted by First Choice. “Therefore, it would be inappropriate of us to comment any further at this time so as not to prejudice future court proceedings.”
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British Holiday makers are making Benidorm their first choice after flights to Alicante have become more attractive.
The travel industry has had it hard recently with passengers losing confidence in airlines such as British Airways with their forth coming strike action, but with cheap flights being made available to Alicante, the holidaymaker are now becoming more confident with short haul airlines.
'Holiday Makers Turn To Benidorm For Cheap Holidays' |
Passenger are now rushing out to buy cheap flights to Benidorm and book their hotels online leaving, leaving high street travel agents looking at ways to bring back their lost customers which they are losing to cheap flight airlines and cheap flight booking websites.
Although Airline companies have reduced their prices, Travel Agents have not reduce their package holiday prices leaving a lot of people puzzled why High Street Travel agents are not passing on the savings.
Airlines having been making surprise offers recently with some flights to Spain being as low as £33 return making it cheaper to jump on a plane to Spain than catch a train to Manchester.
Cheap Flights Gatwick Magazine are advising readers to keep checking on flight prices each day to grab a bargain before the cheap flights to Spain increase in price.
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Leading holiday firms are watching in amazement as they see their customer base dwindle due to the amount of holidaymakers now turning to the Internet to book their family holidays.
Travel Agents have been harping on about their profits not being as big as they were two years ago but they do not seem to be doing anything about it according to our travel expert, Diane Walker.
'Holiday Makers Turn Their Back On Travel Agents' |
Diane Walker said: “There has been lots of reports that travel agents will be reducing their package holiday prices but there is no sight of that happening yet and instead prices having staying put or even on occasions increasing in price, making it harder for families to have a holiday abroad.”
It has been reported that leading travel agents have been stuck with over 60,000 holidays that they are unable to sell and according to a recent news story, travel firms will be having a huge sale, but there does not seem to be any difference in price with high street travel agents making us believe that this is just a marketing ploy to try and off load the thousands of unsold holidays at the same price they have been selling them all along.
After our research, we have found that instead of the holidays being reduced, we have found holidays with leading travel agents staying at the same price and in some respects increasing in price, which includes holidays to Lanzarote in October of this year.
Travel Agents have been complaining for some time now that they are finding it hard to compete against online travel agents and companies offering cheap flights, but even though they have seen a decrease in the number of holidays being sold, it seems the travel agents are sticking to their guns and hoping they can still offload these holidays without giving to much of a discount.
Holiday makers have now become wise and are avoiding the high street travel agent to book their holidays online, where they are finding if they book a separate flight online and book a hotel direct, they can save hundreds on the overall package price.
We have found by comparing 20 holidays being offered by leading travel agents for a family of four in destinations that include Benidorm, Lanzarote and Turkey, that on average we could save £820 by booking the holiday separate and this including luggage allowance and transfers meaning the high street travel agent really needs to understand they are no longer the only point of contact when it comes to a family booking a holiday.
We spoke to a travel advisor for one of the biggest High Street travel agents who said: “I have noticed in our shop that we are not seeing the same faces that we see year in year out and I put this down to more people now using the internet to book their holiday. Even with my discount I have found that I can book holidays a lot cheaper on the Internet than what my company can offer and this does worry me.”
She continued: “With the large number of holidays being unsold and the huge decrease that I have seen with customers coming into our shop I am worried for the future of the High Street travel agent, unless we do something soon, I fear redundancies will be on the cards. We really need to start competing with online travel agents to get our customers back.”
We asked 100 people how they have booked there holiday this year and we were not surprised by the result.
57% said they have booked their holiday online with online travel agents
30% said they booked their holiday with high street travel agents
10% said they have booked direct with British Holiday parks
3% said they could not afford a holiday this year with rising prices
Our survey shows that the trend for booking holidays online is increasing with more and more people looking to save money by booking separate flights and hotels, which in turn is bad news for the High Street Travel Agents.
Unfortunately it does not seem likely that the High Street travel agents are going to start competing any time soon, which means it is good news for online travel agents and online flights agents who are seeing an increase in profits with more people avoid the high street travel agents.
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