Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1210 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE (b) The new concept of Linked Travel Arrangements. (c) The creation of a UK central contact point that would respond to other EU Member States regarding UK established organisers’ insolvency regimes. (d) Minimum harmonisation provisions. Generally it was made clear that the majority of provisions would simply reflect the wording of the new Directive; but where the UK had flexibility in implementation, the government intended to minimise the additional burden on traders 2 . For example, the new Directive imposed obligations on travel “organisers”, but Member States were left to determine whether “retailers” owed similar duties; the UK government did not propose to extend the duty to this degree. The approach to be taken was therefore, to this extent, advantageous to business rather than consumers, and nothing more was to be done than what was necessary to comply with the new Directive (albeit consideration would be given to further reformwhen time permitted; the review date is currently July 2023, by which time it is to be hoped that the uncertainty around Brexit will finally be a thing of the past). As indicated, in April 2018 the UK government published its response to the consultation 3 . Essentially, it acknowledged that respondents representing both traders and travellers had raised issues around its proposals for implementation, and particularly concerns around the new definitions of “package” and “linked travel arrangements”, but it had decided to reflect the language of the new Directive in the domestic legislation, with some supplementary guidance. The difficulty with this, of course, is that the government’s guidance on what it considers the language of the new domestic Regulations to mean is not legally binding on the UK courts, so the uncertainty voiced by respondents to the consultation remains. Furthermore, those representing travellers had expressed the view that the new Regulations should apply to travel arrangements made prior to 1 July 2018, but with travel due to take place after that date; the UK government rejected this option as being too onerous for businesses, notwithstanding that they had been aware of the changes to be made for some years by the time of transposition. 2 Cf para.19, Consultation on Updating Consumer Protection in the Package Travel Sector, https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/637399/BEIS_PTD_ consultation_final_10_08_17.pdf. 3 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/699782/ Package_Travel_Directive_Government_Response.pdf.