Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

PORTUGAL | CARLOS TORRES 1109 The European legislator believes that even though the majority of package travel or linked travel arrangements purchasers are mostly consumers under European law, there is an important range of consumers and representatives of small businesses or professionals who book travel services related to their professional or business activity, using the same channels (Recital 7). Accordingly, entrepreneurs/professionals, besides traditional consumers, start to benefit from the reinforced European legislative framework in their professional or business trips. The Portuguese law recognises this reality in the LAVT 2018 preamble: “In this sense, the figure of the traveller is introduced, defined as any person who concludes a package travel contract or linked travel arrangements, as a consumer or professional, provided that he does not do so based on a managed business travel”. However, the APAVT’s president proved to be a fierce opponent of the new European solution. At the 2016 congress, he strikingly proclaimed like a theatre director: “those who are not on the scene are out of the scene. Business travel is not the subject of defence by the European legislator, so it cannot be the subject of defence under Portuguese law”. With government support, the concept of managed business travel was distorted, as the Portuguese legislator created an ad hoc definition, that is, one that does not appear in the European text, having the intention of emptying the application of the NPTD on business travel. The expedient was as follows: since the concept of the general agreement for the organisation of business trips excludes the application of the Directive (Art. 2/2/(c) NPTD), the Portuguese legislator has put forth an ingenious definition: “The contractual relationship established between a travel agency and a legal or natural personwithin the scope of their commercial, business, craft or professional activity, with a view to the acquisition of a plurality of travel services and/or linked travel arrangements for a specified period”. As the expression plurality of travel services is evident – two or three travel services are enough to fulfil the concept of plurality – it is manifestly fraudulent, aiming to exclude a high number of professional or business trips, as the European legislator refers, in recital 7, the “numerous travel arrangements”. The APAVT intention of excluding business travel collides gravely with one of the Directive’s main innovations. The European legislator, reflecting the importance of innovation, has even replaced the concept of the consumer by traveller, so as to cover most professional and business travel.