Consumers' Association: Few complaints from travelers about Dutch travel organisations

The travelers would recommend travel companies 'Eliza was here' and Fox to others first. At the bottom are Eurocamp, Neckermann, Peter Langhout and Sunair. Consumers do express criticism about the tour guide and the accommodation.

10% of the surveyed travelers have submitted a complaint to the travel organization. Almost three-quarters did this during the holidays. That is the most sensible, because the traveler does not lose the right to compensation and the travel organization gets the chance to solve the problem on the spot.

Bart Combée, director of the Consumers' Association: 'If you have a dispute with a travel organization that is affiliated with the trade association ANVR, you can submit it to the Travel Disputes Committee. Over the past decades, the Consumers' Association has worked - often together with the ANVR - on a strong position for travel consumers. The Netherlands is often at the forefront of this in Europe.'

Rights and obligations

The rights and obligations of travelers and travel organizations are regulated by law, but also in the bilateral travel conditions, which the ANVR together with the Consumers' Association. All ANVR organizations use these conditions, which concern, for example, changes to the agreed trip, price increases and complaints. Consumers must first submit a complaint about a trip locally. If the travel organization does not immediately resolve the complaint satisfactorily, the complaint must be known to the travel organization in the Netherlands within one month of the end of the holiday.

If the parties cannot come to an agreement together, the Travel Disputes Committee can be called in. At the start of the Travel Disputes Committee in 1979, the committee handled 2478 disputes. In 2013 there were only 476.