ABTA is pleased to see that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Council has upheld all three aspects of our complaint about the holidaysicknessclaims.co.uk YouTube ad, and that the ad must be taken down with immediate effect. The content in this ad was highly misleading and potentially led people to believe, wrongly, that a significant number of deaths were related to holiday sickness; that holidaysicknessclaims.co.uk would be recording claims for official statistical analysis so it was important for people to get in touch; and that recent changes to the Package Travel Directive meant that people would now be more likely to succeed in making a claim as the burden of proof was shifted to the tour operator. All these assertions are false, and it is important that people understand this. Whatever claims companies may say, people need to realise that making a fake or exaggerated holiday sickness claim is fraud. The potential penalties for making a fraudulent claim are extremely serious and may include hefty fines, a criminal record and potential imprisonment.

Read the ruling in full