Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

114 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE excursions, shows, visits to museums or spas. If it is acquired together with the main travel service – accommodation – and it meets one of the three alternative requirements (significant part, advertising or representation), we are in the field of a package travel or linked travel arrangement. If this is not the case, the European legislator is peremptory about the mere sum of services purchased after departure: “this should not constitute a package” ( ibidem ). By booking a double room and renting a car, simultaneously, on the hotel’s website, for the same trip or vacation, we are looking at a package travel, that is, the combination of two main travel services 7 . However, if the traveller booked the accommodation online and a few days later, upon arriving at the destination, decides to take advantage of the promotional price of a rent-a-car service, advertised on the hotel’s website or at the reception, it cannot be considered package travel. As recital 15 mentions, a single travel service does not constitute a package nor a linked travel arrangement; it is a single travel service which is later supplemented by another single travel service. There is also some concern to prevent fraud on the law ( fraus legis) : “This should not lead to circumvention of this Directive, with organisers or retailers offering the traveller the selection of additional tourist services in advance and thenoffering conclusionof the contract for those services only after the performance of the first travel service has started.” (recital 18). 4.2. Definition (2) – Package The definition of ‘package’ in the 1990 Directive was: “the pre-arranged combination of not fewer than two of the following when sold or offered for sale at an inclusive price and when the service covers a period of more than twenty-four hours or includes overnight accommodation: (a) transport; (b) accommodation; (c) other tourist services not ancillary to transport or accommodation and accounting for a significant proportion of the package. The separate billing of various components of the same package shall not absolve the organiser or retailer from the obligations under this Directive”. The new definition is broader and states: “(2) ‘package’ means a combination of at least two different types of travel 7 Article 3/1, points (b) and (c). Futhermore, both services must comply with the traditional criteria of duration (at least 24 hours) or overnight stay (include a night’s stay) set out in Article 2 /2/(a).