Foreign tourists complain about fictitious accidents during their stay in a Turkish hotel or on the day of departure to receive compensation from the administration “for health damage”. In some cases, they file complaints when they arrive in their homeland. The Turkish travel media has accused mostly malicious British tourists of “organized games” who choose hotels in Istanbul, Fethiye, and Marmaris for their holidays and use their laws to extort money from hoteliers. Due to the situation, the Turks decided to create a legal service and protect themselves from such clients according to the laws of Turkey.
The working pattern of unscrupulous tourists is as follows: some complaint at the hotel on the last day of their stay about food or injuries due to wet floors or accuse the hotel of having contracted something in the pool. They file a complaint against the hotel and demanded money from them. And Turkish hotels have to pay because travelers arrive through the largest tour operator TUI and hotels simply cannot compete with a large supplier of customers. In just one season in the popular Marmaris, hotels pay the hryvnia equivalent of 100-150 million in this way.
Just recently, the hotel manager was watching surveillance footage and noticed how the mother and daughter had successfully reenacted the fall scene. The tourist approached the ramp for the disabled and pretended to fall, clinging to the handrail. At this time, her daughter, according to the script, stepped aside to take good pictures. The scenario ends with screams and staff coming to the “victim”. As a result, the clients demanded money from the hotel for lack of security and injuries.
What is the profit for the British? He either spends his vacation for free or he can earn money on his trip, returning home with extra money in his pocket. On average, the hotel deducts UAH 170,000-350,000 for each tourist.
According to hoteliers, in many cases, British vacationers should be given “Oscars” for performing their roles. Experts say that tourists take a careful approach to make a claim: they write a script, discuss the nuances and play their roles to the end.
On the one hand, the tourism sector is trying to cover the losses from the pandemic recession with an intensive flow of tourists. And the other suffer from financial losses, as he is forced to direct funds to pay for fictitious “unfortunate” cases. The largest tour operator is aware of incidents occurring in hotels in Marmaris, Fethiye, and Istanbul. However, the hoteliers, who, in their turn, are unable to charge for the NP from insurance pay for it, because there are no documents to support this.
As Musa Evin, who is a member of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and Industry and works in the housing and beverage sector in the region, said the following: “One of our friends paid about 1 million hryvnias and another about 2 million due to scenarios such as an accident or contamination with germs from the pool, an upset stomach from poor-quality food. Tourists have time to rest and return home with additional earnings or simply offset the costs of their vacation.”
Mustafa Shuhan, who is engaged in the hotel business in the area, also complained about the deception of vacationers: “For 25 years, we occasionally encounter malicious vacationers. Over the past 10 years, such cases have increased. Some bring insects to a hotel room, take pictures and complain about pests. Others even return to their homeland, go to the family doctor and get a certificate of indigestion and claim compensation with this report. At the same time, no analyzes are performed. TUI, the world’s largest operator, receives gigantic compensation from us for such baseless claims. The representatives refer to the fact that the client went to the hospital, his psyche was disturbed, and he paid for it, therefore his expenses should be compensated. Over 26 million hryvnias were taken from us in 8 years.”
Now the patience of hoteliers has come to an end. They decided to unite and declare a legal war against unscrupulous tourists because the hotel owners cannot sue the giant tour operator, which brought hundreds of thousands of tourists.
“An organization must be created in which tourists can receive agency and legal support abroad only together. The British tour operator explained to us that these situations have their place in British law. And since TUI is our revenue partner, we can’t fight it. Instead, we will create a legal organization with the participation of all tourism organizations, such as the Turkish Hoteliers’ Association (TÜROB and TÜRSAB), and deal with complaints from tourists under our laws. It will be fair.”
Earlier, DIP wrote about air connections between Russia and Egyptian resorts: “Turkey has recognized a big problem with food for tourists: complaints about restaurant prices have increased by 200%.”