Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 547 depending on the characteristics of such bookings, they can either lead to the creation of a package with full protection, a linked travel arrangement with limited protection or stand-alone services, not covered by the Directive. The criteria for defining ‘click-through packages’ were subject to lengthy discussions during the legislative negotiations. The definition requires that the first trader transmit to the second trader the specific traveller’s personal data, i.e. the traveller’s name, payment details and email address. A ‘click-through linked travel arrangement’ requires that the first trader facilitates “in a targeted manner” the purchase of at least one additional travel service. In both cases (‘click-through package’ and ‘click-through linked travel arrangement’) the traveller must book the second travel service within 24 hours of the booking of the first travel service. Beyond this time-limit, the different travel services are simply stand-alone travel services. The Commission was tasked to report shortly after the entry into application of the Package Travel Directive on the new provisions on ‘click- -through’ bookings, in particular whether an amendment of the definition of “click-through packages” would be appropriate (Article 26 of the Directive) 2 . A general report on the application of the Directive will follow in 2021. 2. MAIN FINDINGS ON ‘CLICK-THROUGH’ BOOKINGS By March 2019, all Member States have transposed the Package Travel Directive in their national legal order. Apart from late transposition, no prima facie problems specifically related to the transposition of the provisions relevant for ‘click-through’ bookings of packages or linked travel arrangements have been identified so far. In order to evaluate the use of click-through bookings, an expert group composed of 20 different organisations representing consumer associations, travel and tourism business associations, providers of insolvency protection and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) bodies was set up and met twice 3 . In addition, a targeted stakeholder consultation was carried out in October/November 2018. Replies were received from 14 competent authorities, nine alternative dispute resolution bodies, four consumer 2 See Staff Working Document SWD(2019)270. 3 http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=3617& news=1.