£2.5m Settlement For Tourists After Holiday Food Poisoning Outbreak
18/06/2009
Two major tour operators have paid out more than £2.5million after an outbreak of holiday food poisoning at a hotel in the Dominican Republic left more than 500 British tourists suffering from illnesses including Shigella and Salmonella.
The outbreak, which affected more than 1,000 guests at the four-star Bahia Principe in the Dominican Republic, led to hundreds of guests being taken to hospitals both in the UK and Caribbean and resulted in aircraft being put into quarantine at Gatwick and Manchester airports upon their return from holiday.
Leading travel law experts at leading national firm Irwin Mitchell have welcomed the settlement with two major UK tour operators, one of the largest ever for a holiday food poisoning case, but said all travel firms had to learn lessons from the ‘comedy of errors’ at the hotel to ensure an outbreak of this kind, which lasted several months, could never happen again.
Included in the group action were 12 couples whose honeymoons were ruined by sickness during their stays between January and August 2007.
The group, who travelled with either Thomas Cook or its subsidiary My Travel, all fell ill while at the hotel in San Juan with a range of illnesses including Shigella, Giardia, Salmonella and E Coli. Many of them needed medical treatment and 29 were hospitalised, five of whom after they got back to the UK. To date, despite flying home two years ago, more than 200 still suffer long-term effects.
The problems at the Bahia Principe Hotel – which has a history of illness among guests – began in early 2007 and continued throughout most of the year as more guests arrived from the UK. The Dominican Republic Minister for Public Health, Bautista Rojas, confirmed in August that year that tourists had become ill due to contaminated foodstuffs.
As the problems mounted and more UK travellers fell ill, one plane flying back from the Dominican Republic was quarantined at Gatwick while another landing at the same airport was boarded by doctors. Other Bahia Principe guests landing at Manchester needed treatment from doctors on the plane before they were allowed to disembark.
Furious guests included those whose weddings, honeymoons, anniversaries and birthday celebrations were ruined, with many tourists describing the hotel as being like a casualty ward as fleets of ambulances continued to ferry poorly guests to hospital day after day.
Clive Garner, Head of Irwin Mitchell’s highly renowned International Travel Litigation Team, said: “This was an astonishing outbreak at a hotel which should have offered its guests a dream holiday in the Caribbean. It was a comedy of errors from start to finish but one which wasn’t funny for anyone caught up in it.
"The scene at the time was horrendous. Day after day, fleets of ambulances were ferrying people to hospital and yet still tour operators carried on flying people out there. There was a flagrant disregard for their customers’ health and safety and every single tour operator in the UK needs to look at what happened to make sure something like this can never happen again.
"It beggars belief to think that so many people can fall ill at one hotel without the issue being resolved and it’s a shocking example of how not to treat your customers."
Garner welcomed Thomas Cook’s decision to settle its holiday food poisoning claims and those for My Travel, which it acquired subsequent to the Bahia outbreak, but called on other tour operators whose customers were also affected to follow suit and allow customers to move on. In addition to the clients whose cases are resolved Irwin Mitchell is also acting for a further 419 clients who travelled to the Bahia Principe with the tour operator First Choice.
Garner said: "Our clients suffered quite enough when they were caught up in all of this on their holiday in 2007, although many are still suffering the after effects even now and may well do for the rest of their lives.
"This settlement will at least go some way to helping them put it behind them but it’s hugely disappointing that First Choice are continuing to drag their heels with the settlement of claims by their customers. Those people also deserve to receive fair compensation for their illnesses and for the shocking service they received two years ago."
The problems at the Bahia Principe in 2007 were not the first of their kind at the hotel. Irwin Mitchell acted for more than 100 guests who fell ill there in 1997. Claims against the hotel have also been made by guests who stayed there in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008.
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