Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 13 | FRANCESCO MORANDI AND CHIARA TINCANI 325 needs of the travellers and the interests of the organisers 15 , has relegated the discipline of the intermediary’s responsibility within national borders. Through digital platforms 16 , organisers can sell their products directly, without the need for third parties; therefore, the latter would predominantly carry out their activities locally. This may explain the choice of the Directive, which considers the package market in the Union as a whole and does not apply the same relevance to the intermediary market. If not today, at least in the future, not only organisers can be not only committed to e-commerce 17 , but also subjects which, without the planning of the package travel, offer them to a public of European nature, with the use of the most modern technologies. Both the travel organization market and that of intermediation can take on an increasingly transnational structure and, if this trend were to be strengthened, the decision of art. 13, par. 1, sub-par. 2, could be questioned for the preference granted to the national discipline, despite the balance introduced, with the States’ obligation not to flout or weaken the prescriptive content of some parts of the European text. In any case, art. 13, par. 1, sub-par. 2, leaves a doubt, with reference to the use of a generic expression, such as “ mutatis mutandis ”, which, among other things, does not respect the classical Latin syntax 18 . The term wishes to underline that the regulation of the intermediary’s responsibility cannot, however, coincide with that of the organiser, even if each single State exercises the power of art. 13, par. 1, sub-par. 2. This is true in general and, even more so, when the themes referred to are discussed expressly, as constraints on national legislative initiative, both because they are heterogeneous and because they postulate a creative effort for the realization, with regard to the retailer, of the objectives sanctioned by the recall of institutes designed for the organiser. 15 Recital 6 of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 . 16 See A. Zampone, Riflessioni sulla direttiva (Ue) 2015/1302 relativa ai pacchetti turistici e ai servizi turistici collegati , in Dir. trasp ., 2018, p. 2; M.D. Masseno, On the relevance of big data for the information of contracts regarding package tours or linked travel arrangements, according to the new package travel directive , in Comparazione e diritto civile , 4/2016, p. 275. 17 Cfr. J.M. Bech Serrat, Selling travel services at a distance: an analysis of the Eu consumer acquis , Springer, Berlin- -Heidelberg, 2012, p. 23; E. Gómez Calle, En torno a una posible revisión del régimen del viaje combinado , in S. Cámara Lapuente (ed.) and E. Arroyo i Amayuelas (coord.), La revisión de las normas europeas y nacionales de protección de los consumidores , Thomson-Reuters/Civitas, Cizur Menor, 2012, p. 385; A. Paniza Fullana and J.P. Aparicio Vaquero (eds.), Nuevas fórmulas de comercialización on line de servicios turísticos: subsunción en los tipos legales y distribución de responsabilidad , Comares, Granada, 2013, p. 56; M. C. Berenguer Albaladejo, Nuevos horizontes en materia de viajes combinados , in Revista de derecho privado , 5/2014, p. 35; J. D. Camargo Gómez, Contratación electrónica de paquetes dinámicos de turismo en el ordenamiento jurídico español , in Ars iuris salmanticensis , 2/2014, p. 95. 18 The expression should have been “ mutatis rebus mutandis”.