Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ITALY | ROSARIA GAROZZO 955 ambiguities and to close legislative gaps. It must be recalled here that the new legislation, according with the Directive n. 2015/2302, has an imperative nature: travellers may not waive the rights conferred on them by the national measures; any contractual arrangement or any statement by the traveller, which directly or indirectly waives or restricts the rights conferred on travellers pursuant to this reform or aims to circumvent the application of it, shall not be binding on the traveller. 3.2. Therefore, the new legislation extends to relations established with the “ traveller ” – no longer only with a “ consumer ” – so that it will apply irrespective of the nature of the person who concludes the agreement with the trader (be it a natural person or a collective body with or without legal personality) and even if the service is bought for the purposes of entrepreneurial or professional it own activity. 3.3. In addition, the new legislation introduces a very extensive concept of “ package travel contract ”, placing the accent on the combination of at least two different types of tourist services (typically flight and hotel) for the same journey or holiday as i) carried out by a professional, including in accordance with a selection made by the traveller, ii) through a single contract, or iii) that is carried out through the intervention of more suppliers with the use of more formally separated contracts, provided that they can be considered combined by the traders involved in a package aimed at the realization of the same trip or holiday. In this light, it is necessary to consider as packages all combinations of travel services that display features which travellers typically associate with packages, in particular where separate travel services are combined into a single travel product for which the organiser assumes the responsibility for proper performance. In accordance with the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it should make no difference whether travel services are combined before any contact with the traveller or at the request of or in accordance with the selection made by the traveller 8 . The same principles should apply irrespective of whether the booking is made through a high street trader or online. 8 The extension of the applicability of the Directive web-site packages is the logical evolution of the Court of Justice’s Judgment on “ tailor made packages ” that, according to the Court, also includes the personalized journey by the traveller with the agency (EC Court of Justice, 30 April 2002, Case C-400/00).