When a holiday goes wrong due to an accident, it always feels a lot more complicated for the victim to make a holiday accident compensation claim. This is normally because the accident will have usually happened in a foreign country and the victim may feel that their memory of the event is blurred by the time they reach home. Anybody who feels like they want to make a holiday accident compensation claim may be put off by these various factors. However, this should not be the case. When an accident happens on holiday, an individual is entitled to exactly the same type of compensation as if the accident had happened at home – holiday accident claims exist to protect holidaymakers from unfair treatment when they suffer an injury on holiday. Accidents abroad happen for a number of reasons, though the following case study shows an instance where the holiday accident compensation claim was made because the individual involved had been injured due to a faulty hotel room and negligent treatment.
Joanna from Shropshire had travelled to Crete with her husband and two children in order to enjoy a pleasant family holiday. Joanna had booked an apartment within a resort complex, as she felt the apartments would be safer for her two children to stay in. On arrival, she was told that the apartment she had booked had actually been double- booked and that her family were entitled to an upgrade to one of the deluxe hotel rooms. At first, Joanna was reluctant, as she had avoided booking the hotel rooms as a precaution for her children’s safety; on telling the hotel representative this, she was assured that the hotel rooms were extremely safe and that she had nothing to worry about. Joanna’s family moved into the deluxe hotel room after some discussion and set about enjoying their family holiday.
Unfortunately, things did not continue to go so smoothly. The room’s bathroom did not have any mats on the floor to prevent people from slipping over. As soon as she saw this, Joanna rang the reception and requested that the hotel bring some mats up, as she was worried about a member of her family slipping on the wet tiled floor. The receptionist was very receptive on the telephone, although Joanna did not receive her bath mats. Wanting to enjoy her holiday, Joanna assumed that the hotel would provide the mats as soon as they could and she went with her family to the beach for the day. When Joanna returned to the hotel room in the evening, she wanted to have a shower before dinner. After she had taken her shower, she stepped onto the tiled floor and slipped, seriously injuring her knee. This injury ruined her holiday, as she had to go to the nearest hospital (a stressful experience, especially abroad) and it left her unable to walk easily for the remainder of her stay in Crete.
When Joanna returned to the UK, she wanted to know whether she had any grounds for a holiday accident compensation claim. Joanna felt that she had been unfairly treated – especially since she had requested a new bath mat and she had been put in a new room without any prior warning. She thought that maybe the bath mat was missing because the room had been prepared in a rushed manner when the hotel realised they had double-booked the apartment. The only doubt in Joanna’s mind was that the accident had happened abroad; she was worried that she may not have the same legal rights as if the accident had happened in the UK.
On seeking legal advice, Joanna found out that she was indeed eligible to make a holiday accident compensation claim. She was advised that because the hotel had failed to provide a bath mat – something which they are required to do under health and safety regulations – that they had put her and her family members at risk of injury. She was also told that because she had specifically requested that this oversight be corrected, and her request was ignored, that her case would be even stronger. The injury had also affected her holiday negatively, which she was also entitled to compensation for.
Joanna eventually won her holiday accident compensation claim and was very glad that she had followed the claim up when she had arrived back in the UK.
