A leading travel solicitor has warned that tour operators are facing an unprecedented “new field” of trips and slips claims.
The industry is also being warned to brace itself for more litigation in areas such as medical tourism, so-called “workations”, and even from the impact on holidays of climate change and extreme weather.
Speaking at ABTA’s annual Travel Law Seminar, solicitor Claire Mulligan said: “Tour operator liability is a new field of claims – we’re seeing many more trips and slips. We’re also seeing new law firms coming through to make claims for trips and slips.
“It’s the same trend as the sickness claims – now it’s bed bugs, trips and slips, that’s where the main cases are coming from.”
Tour operators were hit by a tsunami of fake gastric travel sickness claims between 2016 and 2018, fuelled by CMCs encouraging holidaymakers to start legal action even if they had not been sick.
But the industry was able to fight back by successfully prosecuting some of their customers who made false sickness claims, while the government’s move in April 2018 to fix the legal costs in these sickness cases effectively derailed the business model of the CMCs, who had previously profited from high costs in bringing these claims.
