Tour operators take bookings for resorts that are closed
By Darren Cronian on Friday, August 1st, 2008

Let’s pretend that you have booked a family holiday at a recently opened 5 star resort. You take a visit to Trip Advisor after booking to find that despite being informed by the tour operator that the resort is open and complete, that they’re reviews from travellers who say that a lot of the facilities are still closed.

Tour operators take bookings for resorts that aren’t open

The consumer calls the tour operator but they deny that there’s a problem with the resort. Meanwhile more travellers are leaving comments and reviews about the resort. If the consumer cancels, I suspect they will not receive a full refund, so they continue to pursue the tour operator or go on the holiday and hope the resort is what they expect from the brochure.

It’s not a nice situation to be in, but it’s a scenario that I am starting to hear more often from consumers.

Just a few thoughts:

» I would never check a hotel review site after booking a holiday
» Don’t rush into booking – go home and research the resort
» It’s probably not a good idea to book a resort which has only just opened

The most recent case I received, was a consumer who booked to stay in the Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton resort in Jamaica with Thomson – no status of the resort was provided by the tour operator at the time of booking, other than it was open.

This makes me ask if the resort is not ready by a specific deadline then surely the tour operator should not take bookings.

Thankfully the consumer persisted contacting Thomson and sent them links to the forum posts and reviews on Trip Advisor, and in the end they arranged alternative accommodation in another resort. This means that the consumer won’t have the worry of potentially being transferred on arrival or staying in a resort that is only partly open.

I’d be interested to hear from any consumers who have had a similar issue.


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6 responses to “Tour operators take bookings for resorts that are closed”

Nick | 1 August, 2008 at 9:28 pm

Darren

To be honest I am really surprised, if it is true. One thing to remember is reviews on trip advisor etc are post travel and depending on when the customer is travelling can be the difference with what’s open and what is not. So if the Hotel is due to open fully on the 1st
August, then that’s when the tour operator will sell it from. If they know of problems TUI are normally one of the best at informing customers. When I was in a Caribbean resort in 1993 we visited a new hotel and it did not have even have a beach, however before we left 3 days later it did. The hotel was due to open 2 weeks after our return and did fully on the date it was supposed to. So someone saying this hotel still has the builders in at the being of July and your travelling at being of September is 2 different things.

This highlights one problem with review sites. Remember Hotels also sell discounted preopening stays and not everything will be open. Reading trip advisor the person who stayed in June did comment on things being closed, but as the hotel was not supposed to open till July this does not surprise me.

Darren Cronian | 1 August, 2008 at 11:10 pm

@ Nick

This is the information that I have been supplied by the consumer, who has now had the issue resolved by Thomson. I understand that the resort was “open” in June. The consumer made the booking six weeks ago. It’s interesting that you mention that TUI are one of the best at communicating with customers, as I am still waiting for a response to my questions that I sent on Monday.

To be honest this does not surprise me as it’s not the first time that I have come across this issue.

Kimberly | 2 August, 2008 at 5:54 pm

I never book with travel agents other than American Express’s Platinum travel agents. they’re the only one’s I trust. A common problem with travel agents is that you have no control over your airfare if there are any changes. They’ll book you on multiple airlines individually, so if you have problems with connections you are SOL.

Dee | 4 August, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Well, we’re not a travel agents but a tour operator. We would never put customers on individual tickets, we always buy connecting flights. Unfortunately, these are sometimes more expensive and we have to deal with the occasional customer saying ‘oh but I looked online and it’s only X Y or Z’ and we have to spend quite a lot of time explaining which is a bit frustrating when we make so little money on flights anyway.

On topic, resorts can arbitarily shut different bits down e.g. it’s low season and they’ve had a couple of slow weeks in the spa so they’d rather shut down their spa facility than pay for it to keep running for the rest of the season though they haven’t done this in previous years. And they’ll decide the day before. Just a example.

Darren Cronian | 4 August, 2008 at 11:32 pm

@ Dee

In the low season I can see that happening alot - it happened to us in Crete last year where the owners shut down the pool. To be fair Olympic Holidays were great and complained on our behalf and they helped us complete complaint forms.

I think they have ended up dropping the apartment complex.

James | 20 August, 2008 at 11:25 am

A few years ago i went to Mallorca in October half term and everything was shut, all the shops, restaurants, the pool. It was the worst holiday i have ever been on

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