Russian Family Forced to Share Turkish Hotel Room With Strangers for a Week Due to Overbooking

A family from Ivanovo spent a week sharing a Turkish hotel room with three strangers after the tour operator failed to provide the separate room promised in their contract, a regional court press service reported.

The man had paid 263,000 rubles for the holiday package, which was supposed to include a separate room for himself and his family of three. On arrival, the hotel refused to give them their own room because of overbooking, and the two families of three were placed together in one room for the entire week.

Back home, the traveller gathered evidence of the breach and filed a complaint with the operator, Coral Travel Center, then went to court after receiving no timely response. The company's representative did not attend the hearing, but the operator voluntarily paid 74,479 rubles toward reducing the cost of the services, and the plaintiff scaled back his claims.

The court awarded him a penalty of 51,390.73 rubles, 30,000 rubles in moral damages and a fine of 77,935.02 rubles for failing to meet his demands voluntarily.