BBC TV programme Watchdog claims to be moving away from giving air time to whingers and tackling complaints from people who have experienced genuine problems.
Speaking at the ABTAseminar, programme editor Helen O’Rahilly said she had dropped the controversial Holiday Rescue and phone-line slots since she took over the job.
“I’m here to make a far more reasonable programme. We take our responsibilities very seriously,” she said. “We’re aware there are whingers who book at cheap prices and expect a four-star holiday. I am trying to steer away from banging on about compensation.”
O’Rahilly maintained that her focus was to look at the cases where people have tried to get a matter resolved and not got anywhere.
She said she could cover complaints related to the largest operators every week. “But it is not fair to go at people who provide the most holidays,” she added.
Two tour operators have decided not to appear on the show to defend their companies. “Obviously they had a tough time with Annie. She is a tough interviewer but do you really want to be interviewed by Judy Finnigan,” said O’Rahilly.
She said all the major operators had her direct telephone line if they wanted to talk to her about any issues.
O’Rahilly also defended her decision not to attend the ABTAConvention in Marbella. “We got slagged off by the trade press for not going but we have a programme to make.”
Out of the 10,000 complaints BBCWatchdog receive each week, O’Rahilly said 4,000 of those are holiday related. Of those, 1,000 are disregarded, 2,000 are put on database and the rest are looked at.
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TABLE: Office of Fair Trading complaint statistics