Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

272 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE 2, involve the offer of “a package of quality or lower cost”, the fee shall be reduced. Instead, it is to be considered implausible that the ius variandi pursuant to art. 11, paragraph 2 causes the provision of corresponding services at a higher price, but, in this surprising event, the greater cost would be borne by the company, without any alteration of what was originally agreed. 2. AN EXAMPLE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTICLES 10 AND 11 IN A MEMBER STATE: THE ITALIAN LEGISLATIVE DECREE NO. 62 OF 2018 The Italian lawmakers have implemented the Directive through legislative decree no. 62 of 2018 10 and, with regard to the regulations on amendments before the beginning of the trip, articles 10 and 11 have been received fully and unconditionally. According to art. 39 of Decree no. 62 of 2018, in order for the organiser to proceed with the revision of the fee, it is necessary to add a clause in the contract indicating the calculation method 11 , the power of modification must allow both for increases and decreases 12 and the change in consideration can be caused only by the fluctuation of the three types of costs described by the European legislation 13 and reproduced in the Italian text 14 . The company must inform about the increase in the fee and justify it also on the basis of the calculation methods reported, twenty days before departure 15 . As stated in the Directive 16 , and also in Decree no. 62 of 2018 17 , there is no corresponding obligation to provide information in the event that the fee is reduced. However, the company must reduce the fee regardless of a request, because the lowering of the consideration is enough cause to grant the right to pay a lower fee. The Italian text reproduces the provisions of art. 11 of the Directive, without significant deviations. Thus, art. 40, first paragraph, of Decree no. 62 of 2018 introduces the ius variandi on non-significant aspects of the package though the 10 Legislative decree no. 62 of 2018 amended the provisions of Legislative Decree no. 79 of 2011, the so-called Tourism Code, to make them consistent with the requirements of the 2015/2302/EU Directive. 11 See art. 39, first paragraph, of the legislative decree no. 62 of 2018. 12 See art. 39, first paragraph, of the legislative decree no. 62 of 2018. 13 See art. 10, first paragraph, lett. a), b) and c) of Directive 2015/2302/EU. 14 See art. 39, second paragraph, lett. a), b) and c) of the legislative decree no. 62 of 2018. 15 See art. 39, fourth paragraph, of the Legislative Decree no. 62 of 2018. 16 See art. 19, third paragraph, of the Directive 2015/2302/EU. 17 See art. 39, fourth paragraph, of the Legislative Decree no. 62 of 2018.