When Mr. Jarvis, a British solicitor, booked his dream Christmas ski holiday in 1969, Swan Tours' brochure promised him heaven in the Swiss Alps. For just £63.45 (including a Christmas supplement), he was sold a festive fantasy: a charming hotel on a "sunny plateau" run by the English-speaking Herr Weibel and his wife, promising "Gemütlichkeit" (that rolls-off-your-tongue German word for "cozy contentment"). There would be special house parties, afternoon tea with Swiss cakes daily, candlelit dinners, and festive fondue parties. The pièce de résistance? An "Alphütte Bar" open several evenings a week for après-ski socializing.
But instead of a lively house party, Jarvis found himself increasingly alone as the first week's meager group of 13 guests dwindled to zero in week two. The promised English-speaking host turned out to be more conversant in gesture than English. Those advertised Swiss cakes? Replaced by potato chips and dry nut cookies. The grand "yodeler evening" consisted of a local worker who didn't even bother changing out of his work clothes, speed-yodeling through five songs before vanishing into the night.
Even the skiing – the main attraction – was a farce. Instead of the promised "winter wonderland" with its "wide variety of fine ski runs," Mr. Jarvis was handed children's skis. When he finally managed to upgrade to grown-up skis, the rental boots left his feet so battered and blistered, that he had to abandon his alpine dreams altogether, reduced to watching from the comfort of the Gemütlichkeit hotel lobby.
The case landed before Lord Denning, who said the case wasn't just about a bad holiday, it was about the systematic destruction of a man's cherished vacation dreams. "He has only a fortnight's holiday in the year," Denning wrote. The judge's verdict? Swan Tours owed Mr. Jarvis £125 (roughly £1,700 in today's money) not just for the holiday-gone-wrong, but for emotional damages – making this possibly the first time "disappointment" had a price tag.
The case became so foundational that legal scholars now call it "the Donoghue v Stevenson of Tourism Law" (which, for non-lawyers, is like calling it the Beatles of consumer protection cases). Thanks to Mr. Jarvis's awful Christmas vacation, everyone from package holiday customers to wedding photographers' clients can now claim damages when their special occasions are ruined by broken promises.
[Via Wikipedia]
Previously:
• Travel without baggage