Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

340 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE Albeit with various gradations, there was a general homologation of the discipline, while the choice of different solutions, if well understood, was mainly influenced by the relative tradition of each Member State. A more careful assessment of the organizational reality, on the contrary, could have favoured a rapprochement among the national disciplines. The fact that intermediation presents common traits in EU Countries would have had to suggest to legislators, within the individual Member States, to autonomously modulate the regulations designed for the organiser on the different professional figure of the retailer. The Italian model 50 is similar to that of Germany’s, even though the distinction between the two liability regimes has been emphasized, even more incisively. Thus, faithful to internal tradition, art. 50 of the Tourism Code identifies the relationship that binds the traveller and retailer as an independent intermediation contract, formally and substantially distinct from the package travel contract, regulating obligations and responsibilities 51 in a different manner. We can discuss the overall form and the basic choices made by Directive (EU) 2015/2302; the variety of legal models and the difference between the regulations introduced by national legislators certainly does not favour the position of the traveller who, also thanks to the use of increasingly sophisticated computer systems, has a wide variety of offers and can easily purchase package travel from foreign intermediaries. The objective difficulty in identifying the discipline applicable to the sale of package travel mitigates the protection regime of its interests, despite the overall intentions of a Directive which in terms of intermediation is actually not very incisive. The EU legislator sought full harmonization of national rights regarding the organization of package travel, in particular avoiding the breakdown of the relative negotiation model into various types, aimed at creating a single market. With reference to the role played by the retailer, on the other hand, it renounced to set a homogeneous discipline, leaving to the individual Member States the choice of the applicable regime, with the effect of allowing the prevalence of 50 See F. Romeo, Pacchetto turistico “ all inclusive ” e responsabilità del tour operator per i danni causati al turista dal terzo prestatore di servizi , in Contr. , 2013, p. 7; L. Ambrosini, Finalità turistica e allocazione del rischio di impossibilità della prestazione , in Riv. it. dir. tur. , 2014, p. 269; A. Venchiarutti, I contratti del turismo organizzato nel codice del turismo , in I contratti del consumatore , edited by G. Alpa, Milano, 2014, p. 1171. 51 See F. Morandi, Le nuove regole dell’Unione europea sui pacchetti turistici e i servizi turistici collegati nell’esperienza italiana, in Resp. civ. prev., 2019, to be published.