Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

Chiara Tincani 1 1. Travel intermediaries and their contacts with travellers; 2. The transposition of art. 15 of EU Directive 2015/2302 in certain European countries. 1. TRAVEL INTERMEDIARIES AND THEIR CONTACTS WITH TRAVELLERS IT systems have taken on a predominant role in the tourism market; consumers are increasingly turning to electronic means when purchasing tickets and booking hotel rooms or so-called packages. EU Directive 2015/2302 has extended its sphere of action to the point of understanding the combinations of services obtained via digital platforms, i.e. those on offer which, having been placed outside the traditional distribution channels, had not yet been regulated 2 . According to art. 1 of the Directive, its purpose is “to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market and to the achievement of a high level and the most uniform possible protection (...), by bringing together certain aspects of the provisions (...) of the Member States regarding contracts between travellers and professionals relating to packages (...) and linked services (...)”. EU Directive 2015/2302 has provided for a complete regulation of the responsibility of organisers, dictating a detailed regulation 3 which left limited discretion to the national discipline 4 ; it has not, however, paid similar attention to intermediaries. Each State defines the responsibility of retailers and whether they must also be accountable for the execution of the transaction, in which cases, and with what regime. The reason is clarified by the twenty-third recital of 1 Associate Professor of Tourism and Transport Law – University of Verona. 2 See Zampone, Reflections on (EU) directive 2015 / 1302 relating to tourist packages and linked travel arrangements, in Dir. trasp., 2018, 2 ss See also Masseno, On the relevance of big data for the information of contracts regarding tourist packages or linked travel arrangements, according to the new package travel directive, in Various Authors., The new package travel directive, ESHTE, 2017, 275 ss. 3 See Morandi, The new European regulation of package travel and linked travel arrangements, in Dir. trasp., 2017, 103 ss.; S. Keiler – F. Morandi, The Directive on package travel and linked travel arrangements: The traveller protection in a full harmonization approach , in Franceschelli – Morandi – Torres, The new package travel directive , ESHTE, 2017, 401 ss. 4 See S. Keiler – F. Morandi, Package travel and assisted travel arrangements: The proposal for a new directive in light of a possible full harmonisation approach , in Riv. it. dir. tur. , 2014, 5 ss.