Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1106 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE payments were made to hotels that hindered tourists from checking out, transfers to the airport were planned and other aspects involved. At the end of the repatriation, they initiated an expeditious online refund mechanism for the customers who did not travel. Less favourable is the lesson we learn from Germany, which, in apparent violation of the rule of effectiveness, has instituted an insurance system with an annual limit of 110million euros. These were partially consumed in repatriations, and currently they are struggling with costs that can double or even triple that value. 8. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BANKRUPTCY OF JUST ONE MEDIUM OR LARGE OPERATOR ON THE PORTUGUESE MARKET Let us now do an exercise on the consequences of the bankruptcy of a tour operator, either medium or large, concerning Portuguese consumers. The effectiveness outlined by the European legislator is not observed by Portuguese Law. Indeed, the guarantee is not supported by a sufficiently high percentage of the organiser’s turnover regarding packages; and given the absence of any annual payment, it has an idyllic total cost of zero. Consequently, the public fund does not have a sum that would allow it to cope with the failure of an operator that represents, in the peak season, 50 million euros, not even covering a fifth of that amount. Furthermore, large tour operators, precisely those which generate the highest risk, pay proportionately less than SMEs, but only when the public fund reaches the minimum limit of 1 million euros, with these extraordinary contributions ceasing as soon as it amounts to 2 million euros. The mandatory public guarantee fund (FGVT) is fed mainly from a single 2500 € contribution, which is the same for all the companies regardless of the turnover, paid at the time of registration with RNAVT (Art. 32/1 LAVT) a sine qua non condition of the activity’s proper exercise. This way, the public fund is almost entirely fed by SMEs, which are precisely the majority of companies that register in the National Register of Travel and Tourism Agents (RNAVT) in order to legally operate as travel agencies. In Portugal, once the organiser’s collapse has occurred, the prevailing understanding is that the retailer is the one responsible, therefore small companies, whilst earning a reduced commission for the package’s marketing,