A British family who claimed they “went home miserable” from a luxury French hotel after they were given stale croissants and a smelly room have won thousands of pounds in damages.
Damen Bennion, 52, told his children “Daddy would get things sorted” when they arrived at their holiday in Provence and found the four-star hotel did not meet their expectations.
Bennion, a lawyer, and his wife, Jane, 49, an accountant, paid £6,670 for a week’s all-inclusive holiday with their two sons at a Club Med hotel in July 2023. They claimed the food was “uneatable” and that their room was mouldy and dirty.
The couple said they had been looking forward to a “gourmet” experience in a four-star setting at Club Med Opio. But after an “awful” dinner on the first night and “stale breakfast pastries” the following morning, they kept their family away from the resort during the day and ate their evening meals out, returning only to sleep.
“We told our children on the first night that Daddy would get things sorted, but it wasn’t sorted,” Bennion told Central London county court. “At the end of the week, we as a family went home miserable.”
Commenting on the quality of breakfast, Jane Bennion said: “It’s not hard to get pastries right in France, but they got them wrong.”
The couple said their sons had been “excited about all the activities on offer” and that the parents had been planning to “sit around the pool and enjoy ourselves”, but that once they decided the hotel was not clean enough they did not spend time there.
Judge Justin Althaus ruled that it was the couple’s own choice not to eat evening meals at the resort after the first day but said Club Med would need to pay them £3,945 in damages after finding that their room had been dirty and mouldy.
Bennion, whose law firm specialises in advising car collectors and “high net worth individuals,” said they had been expecting a “gourmet” experience at the hotel’s restaurants but that “everything about the food was poor”.
The first room they were given was smelly, according to Bennion, and the second they were rapidly provided as an alternative was dingy and smelled of mould. Overall, he said, “It wasn’t a happy place to be.”
Bennion said it was “nonsense” to “suggest that we could have enjoyed the croissants in the morning”, and that “the food in the restaurant was awful”.
Judge Althaus said the couple could not fairly assess the quality of evening meals based on one dinner but that he did “accept that the breakfast pastries … were unimpressive for the south of France”.
In deciding to award damages, the judge considered photographic evidence of the hotel’s rooms and said they seemed “dirty and showed signs of considerable wear”.
Club Med had also provided photos, which showed the rooms in a far superior state, but the court decided that since they were undated they proved little.
The judge said: “I am persuaded that there were misrepresentations as to the standard of the resort, and that entitles the claimants to general damages.”
A Club Med spokesperson said: “We recognise the recent court ruling in the case concerning a guest complaint about one of our resorts. While we always strive to provide the best possible experience for our guests, we do accept that on this occasion, there were issues that affected the guests’ enjoyment of their stay. That is why we offered a 20% reduction to them.
“It is worth noting that while the judge did identify some areas with issues, the awarded damages were substantially lower than the initial claim (150% of the package value), and much more in line with the initial offer Club Med made of 20% compensation. We remain committed to delivering high-quality holiday experiences and continuously strive to improve our resort standards.”
