Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Travel firm to pay for botched foreign tour

By A. Subramani

CHENNAI JUNE 7. A consumer forum here has directed a tour and travels company to pay a compensation of Rs. 10,000 to a woman, who complained that the operator failed to provide promised facilities during a conducted tour of Europe and the United States.

Saraswathi Balusamy of Ayanavaram here alleged that she and her husband had paid Rs. 1.8 lakhs to the Lions International Tour and Travel Services at Triplicane in the city towards air ticket, boarding and lodging and sight-seeing.

The tour was to be conducted by Sri Raj Travel and Tours Limited.

According to her, throughout the tour the group travellers were made to stay in hotels other than the ones promised. Though a `detailed visit' to New York had been promised, it was cancelled unilaterally. Also, there was no escort or guide in several parts of the Europe trip and in the entire U.S. trip.

Personnel representing the Lions Tour Services did not take any step to contact Raj Travels authorities and set things right, she alleged. She demanded a refund of Rs. 80,000 in addition to Rs. 3 lakhs as compensation for service deficiency and mental agony.

Conceding that Raj Travels cancelled the scheduled trip to New York unilaterally, the counter-affidavit filed by the Lions Tour, however, said the complainant should have initiated legal action against the former. Raj Travels, in its counter, said there was no privity of contract between it and the complainant. She did not pay the company directly, nor did it promise anything on the exact hotel where the tourists would be accommodated.

Rejecting the counter, a Chennai (North) District Consumer Redressal Forum bench, comprising its president, K. Ramasamy, and members, V.M. Dhandapani and Nagammai Karuppiah, said: ``A perusal of documents shows that the tour operators are liable for service deficiency. The Lions Tour Services version itself gives credence to the complainant claim that the service was deficient''.

Though it was convinced with the allegation that the tour was organised haphazardly, the Bench said there was no evidence to show that the tourists were accommodated in hotels other than the ones promised by the operator. ``Therefore the complainant is not entitled to refund as prayed for''. Noting that the compensation claim was on the high side, it Bench awarded Rs. 10,000 as damages along with a case cost of Rs. 1,000.

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