Spanish hoteliers furious at British tourists’ fake poisoning scam

The Spanish tourism industry is up in arms at the booming popularity of a scam which has seen British holidaymakers apparently fake illness in order to claim hefty compensation packages from hotels.

Industry sources have warned that increasing numbers of Britons are using the hoax, which involves complaining that a meal in the hotel where they stayed gave them food poisoning. With hotel owners unwilling to face the legal costs of taking the matter to court, they frequently find themselves offering a settlement worth several thousand euro.

With the summer season approaching and with it the arrival of millions of British tourists, Spain’s tourism sector is demanding swift action from the authorities to prevent a wave of costly new claims.

At the end of March, Miquel Jerez, of the conservative Popular Party (PP), told the Balearic regional parliament that the number of fraudulent claims had increased by 700 per cent on the islands between 2015 and 2016 and that urgent action should be taken to counter them.

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The Balearic Islands’ regional deputy premier Biel Barceló has warned that the bogus claims could cost the archipelago up to €50 million.

“Coincidentally, the hotels that work with British, Germans and Danes say that the only ones that get ill are the British – isn’t that bad luck?” Antonio Aranda, of the Costa del Sol Hoteliers’ Association, told La Sexta television.

Unwelcome baggage

The UK is Spain’s biggest tourist market, with 17 million visitors last year. But the food poisoning fad has become an unwelcome extra in their baggage and there is no apparent way of stopping it in the short term.

The vast majority of claims are made against establishments in the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Costa del Sol and the resort of Benidorm, which industry sources say saw 10,000 cases last year. However, the phenomenon has spread to other areas, such as the Catalan coast, in Spain’s northeast.

"It's scandalous, just saying that they're ill is all they have to do," one hotel owner in Salou, Catalonia, who has received complaints of food poisoning from five members of the same British family, told Diari de Tarragona newspaper. The owner believes their cases are fabricated, but could have to pay out €5,000 to each of them.

British law favours the plaintiffs as it allows them to make their claim up to three years after the holiday without having to provide proof of the food poisoning. The popularity of “all in” holidays, under which one establishment offers visitors all food and lodging, makes it easier to pin the blame for a supposed upset stomach on a particular hotel.

In Spain, many attribute the popularity of the scam to British law firms, or "claims farmers", which actively seek out potential clients and encourage them to bring complaints against hotels.