Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1104 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE creation of the package, and not on how the trader describes his business. When considering whether a trader is an organiser or retailer, it should make no difference whether that trader is acting on the supply side or presents himself as an agent acting for the traveller”. On the other hand, even if the intermediation does not correspond to package travel, it can occur in the new category of linked travel arrangement: “Specific rules should be laid down for both high street and online traders which assist travellers, on the occasion of a single visit or contact with their point of sale, in concluding separate contracts with individual service providers and for online traders which, for instance, through linked online booking processes, facilitate in a targeted manner the procurement of at least one additional travel service from another trader, where a contract is concluded at the latest 24 hours after the confirmation of the booking of the first travel service. Such facilitation will often be based on a commercial link involving remuneration between the trader who facilitates the procurement of additional travel services and the other trader, regardless of the calculation method of such remuneration which might, for instance, be based on the number of clicks or on the turnover. Those rules would apply, for example, where, along with the confirmation of the booking of a first travel service such as a flight or a train journey, a traveller receives an invitation to book an additional travel service available at the chosen travel destination, for instance, hotel accommodation, with a link to the booking website of another service provider or intermediary. While those arrangements should not constitute packages within the meaning of this Directive, under which one organiser is liable for the proper performance of all travel services, such linked travel arrangements constitute an alternative business model that often competes closely with packages” (Recital 13). 7. THOMAS COOK’S BANKRUPTCY AS A TEST OF THE NEW DIRECTIVE: THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF CONSUMER PROTECTION DEPENDING ON THE MEMBER STATES The collapse of Thomas Cook is a good test of the different national consumer protection systems if tour operators become insolvent, revealing the incompleteness of the transposition of the European legislation in a few of the 28 Member States of the European Union.