Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

264 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE national law systems being available. The exercise of the power of changing the consideration requires the communication of the reasons for such a change and their calculation 30 , for the obvious need to allow the tourist to check whether he falls within the mandatory hypotheses of art. 10, paragraph 1. However, the protection is weak because, regardless of the limited magnitude of the amounts under discussion in a possible, unlikely trial, the traveller would not be able to counteract mischievous behaviour and prove the inconsistency between price increases and the variation of elements mentioned in art. 10, paragraph 1. If the eight per cent threshold is not exceeded, there is no effective protection for the tourist and, if anything, it is up to the national authorities to carry out an overall check on the conduct of the travel organisers; for example in Italy, when similar instances occurred, there have been significant initiatives by the Antitrust Authority on a collective basis 31 . This can be combined with the exercise of the so-called class actions 32 which, in Italy, are explicitly regulated as far as 33 tourism is concerned. All of this applies even more evidently to art. 10, paragraph 4, according to which, if the contract allows for a possible increase of the consideration, the right to have the amount reduced according to the same factors of art. 10, paragraph 1 shall be granted. Even if the conditions were met, it is not clear how the tourist could testify in court and this would not be easy even in the context of a class action, since the elements of art. 10, paragraph 1, are not verifiable in a linear way by those who do not have a professional competence. Once again, the effectiveness of the provision is mostly left to administrative and consumer protection initiatives. If the contract provides for the increase but not the decrease the deed is not void, but, on the basis of the Directive 34 , the traveller shall exercise its rights in 30 See art. 10, third paragraph, of the Directive 2015/2302/EU. 31 See the provision of the Italian Competition Authority in Italy no. 25527, published in the Bulletin no. 24 of 6 July 2015, with which an administrative fine was imposed on the Air tickets tourist service, for not having complied with the resolution with which the same Authority had ascertained that the promotion of low-cost airline flights, carried out through the website , was misleading due to the omission of the indication of easily verifiable cost items (such as airport taxes) ex ante so that the total price of the service was only known at the end of the reservation procedure. In the same context, see provision no. 25509, published in the Bulletin no. 22 of June 22, 2015; provision no. 26637 published in the Bulletin no. 24 of June 26, 2017. 32 See Mancaleoni, Prima vittoria dell’azione di classe italiana: risarcito il danno da vacanza rovinata (First victory of the Italian class action: a spoiled holiday is reimbursed), in Riv. it. dir. tur., 2014, 60 and following, and more generally, see Giussani, Studi sulle “ class action ” ( Studies on the class actions ), Padua, 1996, 45 and following, and, from the same author, Azioni collettive risarcitorie nel processo civile ( Collective actions for damages in the civil trial ), Bologna, 2008, 23 ss. 33 See art. 49, first paragraph, of law no. 99 of 2009. 34 See art. 10, fourth paragraph, of the Directive 2015/2302/EU.