Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

124 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE are simply informed about further travel services in a general way, for instance where a hotel or an organiser of an event includes on its website a list of all operators offering transport services to its location independently of any booking or if ‘cookies’ or meta data are used to place advertisements on websites.” ( ibidem ). 4.7. Negative delimitation of the concept of package travel and linked travel arrangements In the first place, package travel – as well as the new typology of linked travel arrangements – is excluded if the duration does not surpass 24 hours, unless they include an overnight stay, seeing as the legislator considers that shorter trips warrant less protection and would burden operators unnecessarily [Article 2/2/(a)]. The second exclusion concerns occasional and non-profit travel, which is restricted to limited groups, as exemplified by excursions organised by charities, sports clubs or schools, on a non-regular basis – “not more than a few times a year” – where proposals are restricted to its members and closed to the general public. These participants should be made aware that they are not protected by the Directive (Recital 19). In line with recital 15, the “purchase of a travel service on a stand-alone basis as a single travel service shouldconstituteneither apackagenor a linkedtravelarrangement”. Therefore, any protection in this area is excluded regarding ticket sales, in particular in terms of air fare, train fare or when booking a hotel for the weekend.Hotel reservations with travel insurance continue to fall under the scope of single travel service, and consequently are not included in the NPTD discipline. Although there are few areas where the Member States may deviate from the Directive’s discipline, it is permissible to extend their discipline to contracts outside their scope, such as holiday rentals . In other words, in the case of an isolated service – the provision of a space generally furnished and equipped in exchange of a fee –, neither constitute a package travel nor a linked travel arrangement, even though national legislators may apply to it all or some of the rules of the New European discipline (recital 21). 4.8. The Contract: from Travel Agents Contracts to Internetmade Contracts – combined analysis of the first five definitions From the combined analysis of these first definitions, we may draw a few remarks, the first one concerning the change in terminology. The 2015 Directive prefers the term ‘travel contract’ rather than the traditional term ‘tourist contract’; in a sense, we may say “From tourism contracts to travel contracts”.