Foreign tourists complain about fictional accidents while staying in a Turkish hotel or on the day of departure in order to receive compensation from the administration “for damage to health”. In some cases, they file complaints when they arrive in their home country. Turkey’s tourism media has accused mainly malicious British tourists of playing hotels in Istanbul, Fethiye and Marmaris for their “organised games” and using their laws to scam money from hoteliers. Due to the current situation, the Turks decided to create a legal service and defend themselves against such clients according to the laws of Turkey.
The working scheme for unscrupulous tourists is as follows: some complain at the hotel on the last day of their stay about food or injury due to a wet floor, or accuse the hotel of being infected with something in the pool. File a complaint against the hotel and extort money from them. And Turkish hotels have to pay, as travelers arrive through the largest tour operator TUI and hotels simply cannot argue with a large supplier of customers. Only for one season in the popular Marmaris, in this way, hotels pay 68-103 million rubles in ruble equivalent.
Just recently, a hotel manager was watching the footage from the security cameras and noticed how the mother and daughter successfully played the fall scene. The tourist walked up to the ramp for the disabled, pretended to fall, clinging to the handrails. At this time, her daughter, in accordance with the script, stepped aside to take good pictures. The scenario ends with screams and the arrival of personnel to the “victim”. As a result, the clients demanded money from the hotel for lack of security and injuries.
What is the benefit for the British? He either spends his vacation for free, or he can cash in on his trip by returning home with extra money in his pocket. On average, the hotel makes deductions in the amount of 344-689 thousand rubles for each tourist.
In many cases, British holidaymakers should be given an Oscar for their roles, hoteliers say. Experts say that tourists carefully approach the preparation of 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 intense flow of tourists. And the other suffers from financial losses, because he is forced to direct funds to pay for fictitious “accidents”. The largest tour operator is aware of the incidents taking place in the hotels of Marmaris, Fethiye and Istanbul. However, hoteliers pay for this, which, in turn, cannot charge for an emergency from insurance, because. no supporting documents.
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: “One of our friends paid about 20 million rubles and another paid about 40 million. for scenarios such as an accident or infection with germs from the pool, indigestion from poor-quality food. Tourists have time to relax and return home with additional earnings or simply compensate for the expenses for their vacation.”
Mustafa Shuhan, who runs a hotel business in the area, also complained about the deceit on the part of holidaymakers: “For 25 years, we have been encountering malicious holidaymakers from time to time. Over the past 10 years, there have been many more such cases. Some bring insects to a hotel room, take pictures and complain about pests. Others even return to their home country, go to their family doctor and receive a certificate of indigestion and claim compensation with this report. They do not do any analysis. TUI, the world’s largest operator, receives huge compensation from us for such baseless claims. Representatives refer to the fact that the client went to the hospital, his psyche was disturbed, he paid for it, which means that his expenses should be compensated. Over 8 years, more than 52 million rubles have been deducted from us.”
Now the patience of hoteliers has come to an end. They decided to unite and declare a legal war on unscrupulous tourists, since hotel owners cannot sue a giant tour operator that brought hundreds of thousands of tourists.
“An organization should be created in which tourists can receive both 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 partner in our income, we can’t fight it. Instead, we will create a legal organization with the participation of all tourism organizations, such as the Turkish Hotel Associations (TÜROB and TÜRSAB), and will deal with tourist complaints according to our laws. It will be fair”.
