Legal remedies for spoiled vacations.

• Author: Bowal, Peter
• Position: Special Report on Consumer Law

The annual vacation is met with high expectation all year by harried adults. It promises a window of time to strengthen close relationships through exciting shared experience, to see new places and learn new things. The word "vacation" means to empty oneself of work and other toils, replacing them with leisure and refreshment.

One might vacate by staying around home to rest or engage in interests such as sewing, entertaining or golfing. For the purposes of this article, however, we will define and consider vacations in which one travels away from home and pays for services that comprise the vacation. This would include the components of air travel and accommodation (hotel or timeshare) or bought as a more "packaged" and organized vacation arrangement which might include tours and entertainment. It might even be "all-inclusive" of food, accommodation, drinks, transportation and tips.

When these vacations go bad, consumers have a compound loss--the unrecoverable waste of the annual pleasure period, the exasperation of long laid plans gone awry, the helplessness that accompanies captivity away from home, and the financial loss. What was to be reinvigoration was instead stress and disappointment.

If the ruined vacation is due to unforeseen circumstances, such as the outbreak of a civil war, a national railway on strike, unusually bad weather, or large crowds, there is not much one can do. Other times, the travel agent or tour operator may be liable for breach of contract in promising (and charging for) something that was not delivered or, in tort law, for failing to provide good advice on such things as clothing to bring, inoculations to obtain and safety practices to follow.

No Contract Damages for Disappointment

Whether it is buying an airline ticket or an all-inclusive cruise, legal contracts are made between the vacationer and the service provider. If the service is not provided--where the vacation did not happen--one would only be entitled to recovery of the purchase price and consequential damages arising from the breach, such as the cost spent on a substitute hotel or meals that were promised but not supplied.

The applicable law will be that of the local country where the transaction is made, and rarely will one find effective and prompt legal recourse. These transactions will need to be based on the best available research and trust. Once money has been paid, one is largely vulnerable and subject to the integrity of the seller.

If the...