Agent tells Tunisia inquest Thomson site was ‘very vague’ over travel advice

A Travel Counsellor has criticised Thomson’s website for being ‘very, very vague’ in relation to directing customers to travel advice, giving evidence yesterday at the Tunisia beach massacre inquest.

Daniel Clifford helped his parents-in-law Elaine and Denis Thwaites book their holiday directly on Thomson’s website. They were among 30 TUI customers killed when a gunman opened fire at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Sousse on June 26 2015.

Following the attack, Clifford stopped working as an agent to deal with the trauma of their deaths and to help his wife. His franchise has been supported by fellow Travel Counsellors.

He told the inquest neither he or his mother-in-law had noticed the Thomson website directing customers to ‘Visit the Foreign Office website to see visa and travel advice’ at the very end of the booking process.

Even if customers noticed it, he said he believes they would be unlikely to click on all of the hyperlinks because the price of the holiday could potentially go up during this time, or they could be timed out.

"For me as a travel agent, a booking is made around emotion, you are generally happy when you are booking a holiday," he told the inquest.

"So when you get to that end screen, you know the price that you have been given, or it may be held there. But then if you were to go in and read the information at that stage, at the very end, when you are about to click ‘Confirm’ for your holiday, it will take you quite a long time to maybe sift through to the Foreign Office advice and information and go through to there, and going through the terms and conditions of the holiday, again you would run through and take time to read those, and by that time you could have either been timed out of the website or you may just lose out altogether from there."

He said the information was also ‘very small’ and ‘doesn’t draw you in’.

Clifford told the inquest his mother-in-law had contacted him after the attack at the Bardo Museum concerned about safety and he had advised her to go into a Thomson shop.

"I said it was better to go more face-to-face because I know for us as agents trying to phone Thomson it can take quite a while to get through the call centres, and I thought by her going down to the shopwould be more face-to-face," he said.

She had later told him the shop staff had told her it was safe and he had advised her to stay within the confines of the hotel and not to take any tours.

Clifford, who had used his email to make the booking for his relatives, received a booking confirmation email from Thomson three days after the Sousse attack with FCO advice on it and said it was the first document he had received from the operator with any reference to the advice.

"That was alarmingly, and frustrating, we had actually just arrived back from Tunisia after identifying Denis and Elaine," he told the inquest.

Howard Stevens QC, representing TUI, insisted links to travel advice were displayed prominently on Thomson’s website.

"I’m sorry, if something says ‘Important Information’ in large capital letters and you have to check a box that says that you have read and understood that information, what more do you want?" he put to Clifford.

He also pointed out that Clifford’s own web page, which has been kept updated by Travel Counsellors while the agent focuses on the inquest, had a link to travel advice which didn’t actually work.

Clifford said he had not looked at the page for over six months and said his page was a marketing portal, not a booking platform.

Since the attack, Thomson has changed its website so that links to travel advice are on all destination pages.