Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON TRAVEL CONTRACTS (CCV) 645 Federation of Travel Agencies (1965) ” 24 . As mentioned before, the CCV Convention did not achieve this objective since the 1970 Convention on Travel Contracts was only ratified by eight countries in its 50 years of existence. The UNIDROIT options during the elaboration of the CCV Convention could be one of the reasons for the lack of success 25 . The scope of application of the 1970 Convention on Travel Contracts is substantive (uniform private law) and extremely broad, covering two types of travel agency activities, as organiser of package tours and as mere intermediary, so Article 1.1 defines: “ ‘Travel Contract’ means either an organized travel contract or an intermediary travel contract ”. The Explanatory report explains that “ Such diversity of activities naturally cannot fail to be reflected in the legal position of the travel agent, especially as he often combines activities on his own account with activities as intermediary ” 26 . The Convention applies “ to any travel contract concluded by a travel organizer or intermediary, where his principal place of business or, failing any such place of business, his habitual residence, or the place of business through which the travel contract has been concluded, is located in a Contracting State ” (Art. 2), which means without limitation to cross-border relations/transactions, being both national and international travels covered (geographical scope of application, although Art. 40.1.a allows a reservation in this issue, made only by Italy) 27 . Some options of the CCV Convention are also to be noted. The uniform liability rule focus on the travel organiser (for acts and omissions of his employees and agents, which causes loss or damage to the traveller – Arts. 12 and 13), but “ shall be limited for each traveller to 50.000 francs for personal injury, 2.000 francs for damage to property, 5.000 francs for any other damage ” (Art. 13.2). The standard for the intermediary travel agent is the “diligent travel intermediary” (Art. 21.1) and the maximum compensation payable to each traveller is limited to 10.000 francs (Art. 21.2). Likewise, each “ Contracting State may set a higher limit for contracts concluded through a place of business located in its territory ” (Arts. 13.2 & 22.2), but the main objective is to limit the liability (also for extra- 24 Vid . UNIDROIT’s website, available at https://www.unidroit.org/ccv-overview-e (accessed on 25 June 2020). 25 GARCIA RUBIO, Mari P. La responsabilidad contractual de las agencias de viaje . Montecorvo, 1999, p. 29. 26 UNIDROIT. Draft International Convention on the Travel Agency Contract with Explanatory Report. Editions UNIDROIT, Rome, 1968, p 53. 27 This is a similar approach to the Council Directive 90/340/EEC of 30 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours, as pointed out by BASEDOW, Jürgen. The Law of Open Society , The Hague Academy of Private International Law, Leiden: Brill, 2015, p. 109.