Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

Francesco Morandi 1 Chiara Tincani 2 1. Introduction; 2. The retailer’s liability pursuant to Directive (EU) 2015/2302; 3. The transposition of art. 13, par. 1, sub-par. 2, in countries with greater tourist appeal; 4. The retailer’s liability within the Italian experience; 5. A few brief concluding remarks. 1. INTRODUCTION The regulation regarding the retailer’s responsibility represents one of the most interesting and complex topics of the new regime on package travel and linked travel arrangements introduced by the Directive (EU) 2015/2302. Set in Chapter IV – Execution of the package, the rules regarding the breach of the contract are placed, not only symbolically, at the centre of the new legislative text, and take on a fundamental importance in defining the delicate balance of the opposing interests of travellers, organisers and retailers, should pathological events occur during the course of the relationship. The liability regime for breach of contract by the organiser and the retailer qualifies the content of the contract and determines the scope of extension of the obligations taken on by the professional towards the user. The principles established in art. 13, par. 1, of Directive (EU) 2015/2302, entitled “Responsibility for the performance of the package”, are reflected directly on the structure of the relationships between the parties of the package travel contract and express a value that goes beyond the simple legal framework, involving economic relations between operators and the structure of the travel market. The heterogeneous intertwining of the relationships between the traveller, on the one hand, and the organiser, the retailer and the supplier of travel services, on the other, and the latter among themselves, makes for a particularly complex scenario. The situation is then made even more complex by the profound differences that exist in the Member States of the European Union, in the way travel 1 Full Professor of Tourism and Transport Law – University of Sassari. 2 Associate Professor of Tourism and Transport Law – University of Verona.