The European tour, which lasted for 10 days and 9 nights, in May 2005 cost Rs 1 lakh per tourist.

The tour started on a bad note. “We were to take off to Dubai in an Air India flight, which takes a maximum of 5 hours, instead we were taken by a Gulf Air flight via Muscat and Abu Dhabi, which took around 15 hours. The reason given to us was that the Air India flight got cancelled. We later learnt that the said flight was not cancelled,” complainants DPS Goel and Bimla Devi, Shastri Nagar residents, told the Commission.

On their arrival at Heathrow Airport, as there was no representative from Cox and Kings present, the tourists went to a hotel where their rooms were booked, according to their itinerary. But on reaching the hotel, no such reservations were made and after making frantic phone calls a representative of the travel agency came and took them to another hotel.

The complainants also said that the tour guide was highly incompetent as he did not know anything about the places they were touring and the bus driver did not even understand basic English. The group was not shown many places and the tourists did not even get food on time.

The group was promised accommodation in a four-star hotel in paris but were instead lodged in a cheap hotel.