Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

134 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE There is also a reference in Art. 13 ( Responsibility for the performance of the package ), in which it states that “8. The limitation of costs referred to in paragraph 7 of this Article shall not apply to persons with reduced mobility, (…) and any person accompanying them, pregnant women and unaccompanied minors, (…) provided that the organiser has been notified of their particular needs at least 48 hours before the start of the package. The organiser may not invoke unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances to limit the liability under paragraph 7 of this Article if the relevant transport provider may not rely on such circumstances under applicable Union legislation”. 4.20. Definition (15) – Point of sale The fifteenth definition deals with the notion of ‘point of sale’, which means “any retail premises, whether movable or immovable, or a retail website or similar online sales facility, including where retail websites or online sales facilities are presented to travellers as a single facility, including a telephone service”. 4.21. Definition (16) – Repatriation The sixteenth and final definition of the 2015/2302 Directive deals with ‘repatriation’, meaning the traveller’s return to the place of departure or to another place the contracting parties agree upon. A reference made in order to protect the traveller from the risk of insolvency. See, for instance, Whereas 40: “For the insolvency protection to be effective, it should cover the foreseeable amounts of payments affected by the organiser’s insolvency and, where applicable, the foreseeable cost for repatriations”. 5. CONCLUSION The 2015 Directive enlarges the protection given by the 1990 Directive. First, it takes in to account the significant changes in the tourist market, modified by the use of the Internet. Second, it extends the protection previously given to tourists to every traveller, prescinding from the “causa turismi”. Third, it builds a large notion of tourist contract, enlarging the ambit previously defined. Finally, as far as this comment is concerned, it operates with the instrument of new definitions, one that irradiates their effects on the text of the Directive itself.