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Abta: Fix loophole by peak season
Ben Ireland
ben.ireland@
travelweekly.co.uk
Abta has urged the government to fix a legal loophole before the summer peak after a couple, caught out on Facebook, were handed a suspended jail term for faking illness.
Leon Roberts, 37, and Jade
Muzoka, 27, falsely claimed to have fallen ill on a Tui holiday at Cornelia Diamond Golf Resort & Spa, Turkey, in July 2015. But investigators unearthed
Facebook pictures of them enjoying dinner, lounging by the pool and drinking. They dropped their claim, which could have cost Tui £50,000, but the travel giant went on to take action against the couple, who pleaded guilty at a hearing last month. On Monday, Roberts and Muzoka
were given a 26-week jail term, suspended for a year, at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court. After the hearing, Abta chief
executive Mark Tanzer said: “The government must make good on its promise to bring overseas personal injury and sickness claims into the fixed legal
Guilty: Leon Roberts and Jade Muzoka
cost regime, which will cap the exorbitant fees many solicitors are charging on the back of false sickness claims, in time for this year’s holiday season. “Anyone tempted to submit such
a claim must now realise they run the risk of a criminal record and prison sentence.” A Tui spokeswoman warned:
“Anyone making a claim against Tui should understand that we do not pay compensation for claims of this nature. We will bring all similar cases to a court hearing.” Thomas Cook defended a
Liverpool family’s claim for £10,000 in July, while another couple, Deborah Briton and Paul Roberts, were jailed in a separate case against Cook in October. The number of UK sickness claims shot up by about 500% between 2015-17, according to Abta, while Tui reported claims
against it rocketed by 1,400%. Travel Weekly launched its
Fight Fake Claims campaign last year, which aims to reduce the number of fraudulent holiday sickness claims that are blighting the UK travel industry. Back our campaign: travelweekly.
co.uk/news/fightfakeclaims
WOWcruise plans three more stores
Harry Kemble
harry.kemble@
travelweekly.co.uk
A new cruise-only high street travel agency in Wales plans to open three more stores in the UK as it gears up for its official launch.
WOWcruise in Wood Street,
Cardiff, which claims to be Wales’ only high street agency exclusively selling cruise, has been set up by George Johnson, the former managing director of Leisuretime, which specialises in coach holidays, cruises and short breaks. Johnson has ambitions to open
WOWcruise stores in London, Manchester and Scotland over the next five years. The shop had a soft launch
in November and features an interactive ‘Experience Centre’, where customers can see what it’s like on board a cruise ship via virtual reality headsets. The majority of sales currently come through a call centre located at the back of the shop or via online enquiries. An official launch event will take place on April 14
where customers, suppliers and local businesses will have the opportunity to meet the WOWcruise team and take a virtual reality tour around a ship. Cruise suppliers set to attend
the event include Royal Caribbean Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, MSC Cruises and Cruising Excursions. WOWcruise expects about 200 people to attend during the day. Lindsey Coleman, sales
development manager at WOWcruise, who joined from Wales-based online travel agency Cruise Nation, said: “George wanted to break into the cruise market independently, so created WOWcruise. “With the way the market has
gone over the last few years, he saw an opportunity.” Johnson set up parent company
Anytime Travel Group to launch WOWcruise, which is a member of Hays Travel Independence Group, and has plans to launch a luxury or resort arm to the business in the future. The shop employs three other staff and is recruiting four more: a product manager, an online manager and two sales staff.
8 March 2018
travelweekly.co.uk 5 3
WOWcruise will open in Cardiff next month
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