Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

642 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE approval 4 . Contrary to the Montreal/Warsaw Cconventions “for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air”, ratified by more than 100 countries, the CCV was not a success 5 . Only eight countries have ratified, from the 13 signatures in 1970 6 , and out of those eight contracting States, only four can be considered as countries of origin of tourists 7 . The CCV is a substantive global Convention trying to unify rules 8 on the travel contract (either the organised travel contract as the intermediary travel contract), as well as fixing the liability of the “travel organiser” and the “travel intermediary” (Art. 1) 9 , for instance, in case of accidents and emergencies as the COVID-19 pandemic event. Nevertheless, since the end of 20 th century, the travel industry has changed – mass tourism has arisen, with more than 1,5 billion travellers each year, 46,9% with destination to emergent economies 10 , and, thanks to the new technologies, many tourists no longer need to use services of travel agents or tour operators to travel 11 . Moreover, with the rise of the regional economic integration processes (EU, EFTA, MERCOSUR, NAFTA, ASEAN–, etc.) and their regional rules on travel or consumer contracts 12 , the difficulties to 4 The UNIDROIT Brussels Diplomatic Conference adopted the International Convention on Travel Contracts, on 23 April 1970: “At the end of the 1950s, Unidroit began to take an interest in the issue of international harmonisation of legal relationship between travel agents and their clients. Following a recommendation from the 1963 United Nations Conference on Tourism and International Travel and a resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the International Federation of Travel Agencies, in 1965, Unidroit decided to initiate a more systematic analysis of the issue, from the point of view of the possible need for legal unification in this field. A first convention draft was prepared by a study group established for this purpose and presented in 1967, having its final text been adopted at a diplomatic conference held in Brussels in 1970” (author’s translation). 5 Vid . MAPELLI LOPEZ, Enrique. El convenio internacional de Bruselas de 1970 sobre contrato de viaje y su relación con la responsabilidad del transportador aéreo, 7 Anuario de Derecho Internacional 145 (1983-1984), p. 146, arguing that the Convention exists only in French and English. 6 Argentina, Belgium, Cameroon, China, Dohoney, Italy, San Marino and Togo, with entrance in force on 24 February 1976, available at https://www.unidroit.org/status-ccv-1970 (accessed on 26 June 2020). 7 BASEDOW, Jürgen. The Law of Open Society , The Hague Academy of Private International Law, Leiden: Brill, 2015, p. 108. 8 About the international instruments meant to unify and harmonise the law and regional instruments, like the EU Directive, vid . BOELE-WOELKI, Katharina. Unifying and Harmonizing Substantive Law and the Role of Conflict of Laws . Pocketbooks of the Hague Academy of International Law, Leiden: Martinus Nijhof Ed, 2010, pp. 34-36. 9 About the scope of application of the CCV, vid . BASEDOW, Jürgen. The Law of Open Society , The Hague Academy of Private International Law, Leiden: Brill, 2015, p. 108. 10 UNWTO. World Tourism Barometer – v. 18. January 2020. United Nations World Tourism Organization. Retrieved from https://webunwto.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2020-01/UNWTO_Barom20_01_ January_excerpt_0.pdf (Accessed on 28 July 2020). 11 Vid . GUICHARD, Emmanuel. Study on the desirability and feasibility of further work on the Proposal on a Draft Convention on Co-operation and Access to Justice for International Tourists, Annex III to Prel. Doc. No. 3, of October 2018, available at www.hcch.net, No 15, p. 1. 12 MARQUES, Claudia Lima. International Protection of Consumers as a Global or a Regional Policy. Journal of Consumer Policy (Dordrecht Online), v. 43, pp. 57-75, 2020.