Law Firm Already Represents Lykia World Guests

Illness On Holiday In Turkey

A wedding party are among a group of more than 100 holidaymakers taking legal action after their Turkish holidays were ruined by illness.

Specialist travel lawyers at Irwin Mitchell have been inundated with calls from people who stayed at the four-star Lykia World Hotel in Olu Deniz.

This is not the first time that lawyers at the firm have been contacted in relation to this hotel and the head of the travel law team is now demanding action from hotel bosses and UK tour operators to prevent others falling ill.

Guests returning from the hotel, which has 18 swimming pools and nine restaurants, have reported scores of ill guests and awful conditions including dirty swimming pools, undercooked and reheated food, flies and wasps on food and cats in the hotel restaurants eating leftovers.

The holidaymakers travelled with Thomas Cook, with some guests paying more than £2,000 for their holidays. They have slammed the tour operator for letting them travel despite guests having been ill at the resort for several weeks.

The reports coming into the law firm echo those on interview sites where disgruntled travellers are posting details of conditions at the hotel.

Lawyers at Irwin Mitchell, who already represent guests who fell ill at the Lykia World Hotel in 2008, said they were extremely concerned by this latest outbreak and urged an immediate investigation.

Clive Garner, head of the firm’s travel law department, said: “We have already received enquires by more than 100 people who have suffered or are continuing to suffer serious illness following stays at Lykia World. This number is rising daily and will continue to rise unless unacceptable hygiene problems at the hotel are resolved.

"Every day, we are speaking to very angry holidaymakers who stayed at this so-called four-star hotel and are livid that their trip ended with them suffering severe illness whilst staying at a hotel that was nothing like Thomas Cook advertised.

"We have already begun our own investigation into this outbreak of illness and it is apparent that many tourists had very distressing experiences at Lykia World, and both Thomas Cook and the owners of this hotel must deal with the obvious problems here immediately."

Garner added: "It is also of particular concern to us and our clients that Thomas Cook should have known the extent of the problems at this hotel but despite this they carried on sending out unknowing holidaymakers - their customers let's remember - in the full knowledge they could become seriously ill. That's just appalling. We urge Thomas Cook to stop sending holidaymakers to this hotel until every single issue is resolved and they can give their customers a cast iron guarantee that they won’t be the next guests to be struck down by illness. It is totally unacceptable that other tourists could fall ill and have a holiday ruined due to poor hygiene standards.

Sadly, for the people we are already speaking to, it's already too late for that but Thomas Cook owes each and every one of them an apology, an explanation and fair compensation."

Many Members Of Wedding Party Fell Ill On Holiday

Newlyweds Gemma and Robert Hayes are among those rueing their decision to choose Lykia World. The South Yorkshire couple travelled to the resort to get married in September.

Sadly the couple’s wedding was ruined when the groom and many of the wedding party fell ill with stomach cramps and diarrhoea just days after arriving at the resort.

Gemma Hayes said: "This wasn’t only our special day as a couple, but a triple celebration for us as a family, with it being my parents’ Silver Wedding and my brother's 21st birthday as well. All three occasions were totally destroyed as our guests were dropping like flies. It was complete mayhem.

"I was devastated from the moment we got to the resort as it was just horrible, and the last place I wanted to spend my wedding day. I've never seen anything like it. There were swarms of insects and bees crawling all over food and the food that hadn't been half eaten by bugs was lukewarm.

"But the final straw was when Robert fell ill a couple of days before the wedding, as he spent the entire day in discomfort and had to keep rushing to the toilet. I can't describe how that made us feel. It's a day we'll never get back."

She added: "I suppose the only silver lining was that I wasn't ill for the wedding, but I got so poorly the day after and have been poorly ever since, which is really worrying now that we have found out since we got back that I am pregnant. It's one more worry we could do without. We just can't put this dreadful holiday behind us."

And the devastated bride said she and her family were also furious when they found out they were not the first people to have fallen ill at the hotel, saying: "Thomas Cook must have known there were problems at this hotel as others guests who were there prior to our stay had said there had been sickness there for weeks.

"I want Thomas Cook to give us an explanation as to why they saw fit to send us to a hotel for our special day where there was an illness outbreak."

The problems at the Lykia World are similar to those reported by Irwin Mitchell clients who fell ill in the summer at another Turkish hotel, the Holiday Village in Sarigerme. The Holiday Village has an appalling five-year record of large illness outbreaks and was recently exposed on the BBC’s consumer show Watchdog.