Tui to pay £8k after massage therapist hit by severe food poisoning on ‘wellness’ trip

Travel firm Tui has been ordered to pay out £8,500 after a massage therapist was struck down with a severe bout of food poisoning on a wellness break to Morocco.

Jennifer Irving, 60, fell ill on the fifth day of her week-long stay at the four-star Les Jardins d’Agadir hotel in March 2018 and had to be taken off the flight home in a wheelchair after fainting.

She was sick for a further two weeks after getting back to the UK, missing several days of work at her Natural Beauty From Within massage therapy salon in Hampstead.

Tui denied being to blame but has been ordered to pay £8,639 in costs and damages after a judge found “contaminated food” at the hotel was the likely cause of the illness.

“I suddenly started feeling really ill and felt like I needed to be sick”, Ms Irving told Central London county court.

She had booked an all-inclusive package through Tui at the hotel, which has its own spa and wellness centre, and did not eat anywhere else during her stay.

She told the court she had only ventured out of the resort for short walks, had not swum in the sea or the pool and had not had contact with the animals during a trip to a local zoo.

In evidence, Ms Irving said serving areas in the hotel restaurant “were not as clean as they should be” and she had been concerned by “large birds” in the outside eating areas, who gathered when the cooks were preparing pancakes.

She was also troubled by waiters handing over glasses of Moroccan mint tea which were held “from the top”.

Ms Irving said the symptoms of her illness were “acute” for the final two days of the holiday and told the judge: “I felt sick [on the plane] and before I realised, I had fainted.”

She agreed the service from Tui on the flight home had been excellent, including having a wheelchair waiting when the plane landed.

Tui disputed the claims, insisting no other guests had complained of sickness, and relied on the hotel’s reputation for good hygiene and food safety.

But Judge Jonathan Hand QC accepted medical evidence pinpointing the hotel as the likely cause of the illness.

“Of course the court cannot rule out the possibility of some other cause,” he said. “But it seems to me that the conclusions of the expert remain good. [Ms Irving] does not need to prove the cause of the contamination, simply that her symptoms were caused by contaminated food.”

Ms Irving was awarded £1,623 in damages and Tui was ordered to cover £7,016 in legal costs.