Chaos outside State Courts between disgruntled travellers and holiday planner

Chaos outside State Courts between disgruntled travellers and holiday planner

Chaos erupted outside the State Courts today (Dec 7) when a tussle broke out between members of a tour group and a holiday planner who allegedly had not made payment to a Port Dickson hotel, affecting 142 Singaporeans.

Stomp contributor Anwar alerted citizen journalism website Stomp to a video uploaded to Facebook by a member of the group, Amy Tashiana, of the holiday planner named Safarina refusing to leave a taxi when the disgruntled group wanted her to go with them to file a claim and make a police report.

The video, which has been taken down, showed Safarina in distress and clinging to the taxi but eventually giving in and walking into the courts.

Berita Minggu reported on Sunday (Dec 6) that the travel group, which included some blind, and wheelchair-bound participants, had travelled to Port Dickson's Lexis Hibiscus Hotel only to find out payment had not been made to the hotel.

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According to the report, organiser Sharifah Alkaff discovered that the three-day package she had booked on behalf of the group did not include the hotel stay they expected.

Ms Alkaff had used the services of Ms Safari to settle the booking and payment to the hotel.

Each participant had paid around $200 to $350 for the travel package which included a dinner featuring performances by singers Roslan Shah and Elfee Ismail and hosted by Gia Munaji.

Due to an overwhelming sense of guilt, Ms Alkaff forked out $14,000 of her own money to ensure that all participants could at least get a night's stay at the hotel.

Ms Alkaff told Berita Minggu that she had tried to contact Safarina who merely apologised and said "it was not on purpose".

Berita Minggu attempted to interview Ms Safarina but could not get through to her or her family.

Gia Munaji posted a video about what had happened on her Facebook which has since gone viral, garnering over 220,000 views.


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