Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1116 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE The association of travel agencies’ stubbornness to exclude business travel collides head-on and severely with one of the NPTD’s main innovations. The European legislator, reflecting upon the importance of this innovation, has even replaced the concept of “consumer” with “traveller”, to protect most professional travels. 11.5. The scope of the transposition: a new Law of tour operators and travel agencies instead of the transposition for all intermediaries and service providers who combine travel services. The Portuguese legislator did not adequately transpose the new European rules, confining them to travel agencies – hence the creation of a new law on travel agencies and tour operators instead of a general diploma, applicable to natural and legal persons combining travel services – and strikingly ignoring the broad definition of the operator (Art. 3/7 NPTD). Airlines, hotels and other service providers are prohibited from combining travel services after the transposition of the NPTD in Portugal, they can only sell their services directly to the public and cannot combine them with others. This is precisely the reverse of what the European legislator intended. Indeed, from the 1990s framework, contained in Directive 90/314/EEC, with a printed brochure produced by a large organisation (the tour operator) and marketed through the retailer (travel agency), to 2015, a radical change has come to pass in travel purchases induced by the Internet. This situation has been gradually asserting itself since 1994, when “www” was born, and not just for tour operators and retailers, but for service providers too, e.g. airlines and hotels themselves who combine services and sell them directly to the consumers. As the European legislator notes, the travel market “has undergone considerable changes since the adoption of Directive 90/314/EEC. In addition to traditional distribution chains, the Internet has become an increasingly important medium through which travel services are offered or sold. Travel services are not only combined in the form of traditional pre-arranged packages, but are often combined in a customised way. Many of those combinations of travel services are either in a legal ‘grey zone’ or are clearly not covered by Directive 90/314/EEC. This Directive aims to adapt the scope of protection to take account of those developments, to enhance transparency, and to increase legal certainty for travellers and traders.” (recital 2). By prohibiting an airline from combining travel services, namely flight and accommodation or a fly-drive or a hotel from elaborating a golf or spa package