Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 3 | INMACULADA GONZÁLEZ CABRERA 137 to the emergence of multiple platforms that help tourists when they acquire tourist services. Increasingly, this option has allowed consumers to organize their own vacations by themselves, using the multiple offers and facilities offered by the Internet, including the traditional packages pre-established by travel agencies, both virtual (online travel agencies or OTAs) or face-to-face (off-line agencies) 3 , as well as using new travel combinations to which the Directive 2015/2302 should respond. In fact, article 1 of theDirective 2015/2302, states that its purpose is “to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market and to the achievement of a high and as uniform as possible level of consumer protection by approximating certain aspects of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States in respect of contracts between travellers and traders relating to package travel and linked travel arrangements” . As regards package travel contracts, the European legislator seems to address the greatest possible harmonization, not only within the internal market but also in relation to these other linked travel arrangement or dynamic packages, which are currently the most frequently developed. The present work attempts to respond to this current situation by addressing the analysis of the specific regulation, which is contained in the Directive 2015/2302, for the dynamic package or linked travel arrangement. II. THE DYNAMIC PACKAGE AS A DIFFERENT PRODUCT FROM THE PACKAGE TRAVEL It is necessary to start by defining the dynamic package or linked travel arrangement as a tourist product integrated by several tourist services for the same trip or holiday, assembled electronically by the traveller himself through one or several websites redirected from the website main page 4 . This is the case, 3 As accurately states CAMARGO GÓMEZ, J. D.: “Contratación electrónica de paquetes dinámicos de turismo en el ordenamiento jurídico español”, Ars Iuris Salmanticensis, Vol. 2, diciembre 2014, p. 96, “the electronic tourist now seeks to have unique experiences when traveling and that these are accompanied by their closest contacts. The “e-tourist” wants flexibility when making his travel, he wants a holiday free of conditions, with their own destinations and time duration. In addition, in many cases, the Internet allows them to do so at a lower price and with higher quality tourist services than those offered in pre-established packages”. (Translated to English). 4 We already had the opportunity to define it in GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I.: “El contrato de viaje combinado y los paquetes dinámicos”, Manual de contratación turística, Franch Fluxá, J. (dir.), Atelier, 2015, p. 128, as “the tourist product integrated by more than one service (accommodation, transportation, car rental, etc.), which is telematically made or assembled by the traveller himself, through a website or through several linked websites to which the buyer arrives from the main web page” (Translated to English).