Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

1182 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE The LVC extends these insolvency protection requirements to the acquisition of linked travel services, which must be incorporated by employers to cover the reimbursement of payments made by travellers, to the extent that one of the travel services is not executed “ as a result of their insolvency ”; and taking into account that if these employers are the party responsible for passenger transport, the guarantee will also cover the repatriation of passengers. The guarantee may be instituted by the creation of a guarantee fund, the purchase of insurance, a guarantee or other financial guarantee, as determined by the competent authorities. Similarly, employers not established in a Member State of the European Union who provide linked travel services in Spain, or who by any means direct such activities to Spain, shall also be obliged to provide such security. Insolvency shall be deemed to have occurred as soon as it is apparent that, owing to the lack of liquidity of entrepreneurs, travel services will cease to be executed, will not be implemented or will be implemented only partially or when service providers require travellers to pay for them. In the event of insolvency, the guarantee must be available and the traveller will be able to easily access the guaranteed protection, as the Spanish standard requires that reimbursements for unperformed travel services shall be made without undue delay at the traveller’s request. As regards its configuration, the LVC determines the competence of the Autonomous Communities to regulate financial guarantees for insolvency. The possible regional normative dispersion that could have arisen was restored as a consequence of the agreement already adopted in 2017 by the Sectoral Commission of Tourism (through the Board of Directors General of Tourism of the Autonomous Communities), which established harmonised criteria for the adoption of guarantees. In accordance with the harmonised text adopted within the Sectoral Tourism Commission, the guarantee may take three forms: individual guarantee (by insurance, guarantee or other financial guarantee); collective guarantee (through contributions to a joint guarantee fund, through the legally established business associations) or guarantee for each package (through insurance for each combined travel user). When the traveller makes the first payment regarding the price of the package, the organiser or, where applicable, the retailer shall provide a certificate attesting to the right to complain directly to the guarantor in the event of insolvency, featuring the name of the guarantor entity and its contact details. Where the performance of the package is affected by the insolvency of