Hotel Complex Injury - Personal Injury Compensation Claims with clickandclaim’s Personal Injury Solicitors

Our specialist solicitors can advise you on your chances of succeeding with your personal injury claim, and we have solicitors experienced in the area of hotel complex injury claims.

Most holidays are taken as a family and if one of you is injured, it can ruin your eagerly awaited break. The injuries need treating and then the problems of coping with the injured person begin for the rest of the family.

The Association of British Insurers pays out an estimated 80 million pounds a year for medically orientated claims, the majority of which relate to accidents suffered whilst on holiday.

Some countries don’t require their citizens to be as highly insured as we do in the UK and therefore, through no fault of their own, the Defendants, in some cases, are not as thoroughly insured as you might expect.

Some of the more common examples of accidents which occur and lead to people making a holiday accident compensation claim are:-

• Injury caused by disrepair/poor maintenance of your hotel or apartment building;
• Food poisoning;
• An injury whilst on an organised excursion
  

Package Holidays

In 1992 the travel industry was regulated with the introduction of "The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tour Regulations." The system gave the consumer more protection than ever before in that a consumer could bring a claim directly against the tour operator instead of, for example, the hotelier directly. In order to bring any type of action under the Regulations, it is important that the package holiday meets certain criteria to apply. In essence, the package must include at least two of the following components when sold and when the service covers a period of more than 24 hours or includes overnight accommodation:-

i) Transport;

ii) Accommodation;

iii) Other tourist services ancillary to transport and accommodation and accounting to a significant proportion of the package.

The majority of package holidays will be included within the regulations as most include (a) a flight and (b) hotel accommodation.

Excursions

Excursions are unique, in that unless they have been pre-booked prior to departure or form part of the "package" then they will fall outside of the Regulations. An excursion is, by its own right, a separate contract and therefore, without any express admission of liability on behalf of the Tour Operator within their booking conditions, any failure in the performance of the excursion will give rise to an action in the Country where the accident happened as opposed to via the Tour Operator in the UK.

Non-Package Holidays

Given the continuing growth of the consumer using the internet, there are increasing numbers of travellers who make their own travel/holiday arrangements. There are numerous sites which offer flights, accommodation and excursions separately and in a lot of cases, the consumer can reduce the cost of the holiday overall by doing this. However, the customer will enter separate contracts for each part of the holiday purchased and therefore, the Travel Package Regulations will not apply. In these circumstances, the customer will have to consider bringing a claim against whomever the contract was made with.

Accidents at the Hotel

The most common accidents in Hotels are caused by:-

• Falling;
• Slipping/tripping;
• Cutting oneself on glass;
• Accidents in swimming pools.

As explained above, should your holiday be considered a package holiday under the Package Travel Regulations, then there is a possibility of being able to make a claim against the Tour Operator as opposed to the Hotelier. In essence, Regulation 15(1) states that the Tour Operator is liable to the consumer for the proper performance of the obligations under the contract, irrespective of whether those obligations are performed by the Tour Operator itself.

How can you determine whether any “obligation” has been breached? The starting point is to assess what the contract states and has been promised. The contract terms are usually found in the booking conditions and brochure content. If an express term has been breached i.e the brochure states that your villa has a swimming pool, but ultimately it did not, then the Tour Operator will be in breach of the contract.

Additionally, there may also be “implied” terms in the brochure, for example, that the accommodation and swimming pool is of a reasonable standard. Where an implied term has not been performed properly, liability will not always be established. The question to ask here is "what is the standard by which ‘reasonable care’ is to be measured and applied?" This is a difficult question to answer and each case will have to be judged on its on facts but, for example, it is clear that a customer would expect that the food served at the hotel would be safe to eat.

Accidents outside of the hotel complex

Some accidents will occur outside of the hotel, perhaps falling due to a large pothole on the street or being injured on a jet-ski. It is unreasonable to impose a duty on the Tour Operator to inspect highways, beaches, shorelines or foreign companies offering excursions/sports equipment etc in order to warn their customers of any possible dangers. Therefore, unless your trip was included within your package, a breach of the Travel Regulations would not be successful here.

It may be possible to pursue a claim against the Country/Company whom you believed caused your accident, but you should bear in mind that laws are different to that in the UK.