Accommodation biggest gripe amongst holidaymakers

Unijet and British Holidays attracted the least number of consumer complaints, according to the survey of 25 operators last summer.

Most improved operator was Thomas Cook, which managed to cut complaint levels from 1.88% the previous year to 0.63%.

Virgin Holidays and Balkan Holidays had complaint levels of 2.92% and 1.65% respectively, while Unijet and British Holidays were best at keeping customers happy with a complaints to passengers ratio of just 0.08% each, according to the Co-op Travel Trading Group.

The overall level of complaints from Co-op customers against holiday companies dropped from 0.93% to 0.69%.

Standards of holiday accommodation were the biggest overall source of complaint although the percentage of the total dropped from 35% the previous year to 23.7% in 2004. 

Other major causes included flight changes (7.3%), accommodation changes (6.6%), price (5.8%), building works (5.1%) and administration errors (4.2%).

Complaints about the service provided by Co-op travel outlets were just 0.23 per cent of all passengers booked during the season. Top causes were branch administration and quality of information.

Thomson, Inghams, Kuoni, Virgin and Cresta all refused to divulge their overall complaint levels.

The Co-op’s study takes in one million holidaymakers and looked at the customer service performance of 25 of the UK’s biggest travel suppliers during summer 2004.

Mike Greenacre, head of the Co-operative Travel Trading Group (CTTG), said:  “In terms of package holidays, our study shows that in general, companies are doing a good job in keeping customers happy. 

“It’s a big disappointment that some well known companies continue to keep complaints figures to themselves and the public must draw their own conclusions from this.

“It also concerns us that accommodation continues to top the list of complaint causes. The industry as a whole must make more of an effort to make the public understand that you cannot have five-star luxury for two-star prices.”

The holiday companies featured in the study all carried more than 5,000 passengers booked through Co-op travel outlets during summer 2004. The Co-op’s complaints ratio for each company is based on the number of complaints it receives as a percentage of total bookings with the company. 

Virgin Holidays responded in a statement saying: “It is great to see customer satisfaction being pushed up the agenda, but it is a shame these reports are not truly reflective of the service being offered by operators.

“The Co-op reports on departures between May and October last year – a
time when Florida and the Caribbean suffered some of the worst hurricanes in 50 years.  As the largest tour operator affected during this devastating time, we evacuated more than 10,000 customers and thousands more had their holidays disrupted by severe weather. At the time of these hurricanes, more than 80% of our customers who booked with Co-Op visited the Caribbean and Florida, so it is not surprising we are seeing disappointing figures in this survey.
 
“Virgin Holidays’ own customer satisfaction has consistently increased year on year and we remain extremely proud of the service we provide to hundreds of thousands of customers. The ever growing number of our loyalty club members and the multitude of awards won is a clear reflection of the high standards set by Virgin Holidays.

“We have always supported an independent and consistent customer service measure across the industry, but this is something that has not yet been
available to us.”
 

Report by Phil Davies