Prince George's family inspires Maryland law on travel service protections

A Bowie family’s grief became a statewide consumer-protection law as Gov. Wes Moore signed the Don’t You Worry (Wurie) Act, a measure meant to keep Maryland travelers from paying for trips that never come through.

The bill’s formal title is Business Regulation - Travel Services - Special Fund, Fees, and Surety Requirement. It creates the Sellers of Travel Services Registration Fund inside the Maryland Department of Labor and requires certain travel-service providers to file proof of professional liability and errors-and-omissions insurance of at least $1 million. The law also gives Labor authority to regulate registration, collect fees to cover oversight, and use those fees to pay the state’s enforcement costs. A 2025 fiscal note estimated at least $99,000 in annual special-fund revenue starting in fiscal 2026 and $102,700 in state spending that year for startup and staffing.

The measure is tied to the deaths of Isatu and Alieu Wurie, a Bowie couple who died during the June 2024 Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in extreme heat that was linked to more than 1,300 deaths overall. Their family said the couple had spent their lives dreaming of the trip, but the travel arrangement they bought left them exposed. Saida Wurie told lawmakers that each parent paid $11,000 for the pilgrimage, while earlier reporting said the package was sold as an all-inclusive $20,000 trip through E-Hajj & Umrah Tours, a Silver Spring-based business. The family said transportation, meals and lodging did not materialize, and Saida Wurie said the couple walked for hours after being promised rides and went days without meals.

For Prince George’s County, the law reaches beyond one family’s loss. Bowie sits in a county with large immigrant and faith communities, and residents regularly book pilgrimage, family and business travel through agencies that operate across Maryland. By requiring registration and insurance, the state has created a paper trail that did not exist before and a public oversight structure that can help families verify whether a seller is legitimate before booking. The law does not erase the hardship of a death abroad, but it does give Maryland a clearer way to monitor who is taking travelers’ money and under what standards.

Jason Perkins Cohen, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, said the department would have “no ability” and “no authority” to oversee the travel industry without the bill. Adrian Boafo introduced the legislation after the 2024 deaths, and the bill passed the House in March 2026, cleared the Senate in April and was enrolled in May.

The American Society of Travel Advisors pushed back, saying the bill would add costs for legitimate small businesses and would not meaningfully deter bad actors. ASTA said it represents more than 5,000 travel advisors in Maryland. But for the Wurie family, the measure turned private mourning into a statewide safeguard, and gave Maryland a new tool to police an industry that had left three residents dead abroad, including Fatmata Koroma, 61, another Maryland traveler who died on the same Hajj journey.