Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1002 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE on the basis of the tourist’s travel experience, preferences and other individual characteristics (e.g. whether the tourist is travelling for the first time, his or her requirements for accommodation, meals, hotel environment), and cannot be equated only to the provision of mandatory information set in legal acts. At the same time, when evaluating whether the information on passport validity requirements was sufficient and clearly understood, the Court applied the average consumer standard, which, according to the practice of the European Court of Justice, means a reasonably well informed, observant and circumspect consumer. Taking into account the ECJ practice concerning UCTD and UCPD, there is no doubt that average consumer as a measurement of comprehensiveness will survive. Indeed, in the authors’ view, after the implementation of the new Travel Directive, the question will arise, whether this average consumer standard will also apply to the traveller who is not a consumer in the narrow sense. The duty of disclosure has a close link to the burden of proof in compliance with the information requirement. The Travel Directive establishes this burden on the trader (Article 8 of the Travel Directive). This rule is implemented by Article 18 (3), (1) of the Law on Tourism, providing that “the travel retailer must provide tourists with the information referred to in Article 6.748 of the Civil Code, the duty to prove that the requisite information has been provided being incumbent on the travel retailer”. Having in mind that general burden of proof in compliance with the duty of disclosure is set out in Article 6.228/ (4) of the Civil Code, it might be argued that there was no necessity to repeat the same rule in the regulation of a separate type of contract. However, this necessity for the repetition depends on solution of ‘traveller-consumer’ dilemma. 4.2. Content of the package travel contract Another aspect concerning the language requirements is related to Article 7 (1) of the Travel Directive, ensuring that package travel contracts are in plain and intelligible language. Whereas in national law, it is provided that the package travel contract must be drafted in a clear and comprehensible language (Article 6.749 (1) of the Civil Code). This inconsistent implementation is the result of imprecise translations of the text of different consumer protection directives into the Lithuanian language. As in the Lithuanian version of Article 7 (1), the requirement of plain and intelligible language is set, being the same provision provided in UCT Directive translated as “clear and comprehensible language”. It should be noted that the requirement to ensure that package travel contracts are in plain and intelligible language, set out in the Article 7 (1) of the Travel