Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON TRAVEL CONTRACTS (CCV) 649 II.1. The Rise of Consumer Law, the Changes in the Global Mass Tourism and the Decline of Travel Agencies According to the UNWTO, the number of international arrivals reached 1.5 billion persons, for the first time in modern history, in 2019 36 . This new phenomenon of mass international tourism is accompanied by the worldwide development of consumer law since the 1960s. The UNGuidelines on Consumer Protection came into force 1985, being reviewed in 1999 and 2015. As David Harland stated, the “ adoption of the Guidelines marked a growing recognition by the United Nations of the international dimension of consumer protection and of the fact that consumer policy could not be viewed solely in national domestic terms ” 37 . Thus, more than 30 years later, markets are becoming more globalised, consumption is highly digitalised and at a distance 38 , and, up until last year, 1.5 billion people were crossing national borders to tour and consume internationally. Therefore, it is a consensus that consumer law on its current scale has an international dimension 39 . Consumer law legislation is not only domestic law, but also a fundamental right of some processes of economic integration 40 , especially the EU. Since the Council Resolution of 14 April 1975, on a preliminary program of the European Economic Community for a consumer protection and information policy, consumer protection has become one of the most transversal EU policies at EU level, today with more than 90 texts (Directives, Regulation, etc.) “ as part of the effort to establish a « Europe for citizens »” 41 . Article 169 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) defines specific objectives of the policy: “ In order to promote the interests of consumers and to ensure a high level of consumer protection, the Union shall contribute to protecting the health, safety and economic interests of consumers, as well as to promoting their 36 UNWTO. World Tourism Barometer – v. 18. January 2020. United Nations World Tourism Organization, https://www.e-unwto.org/toc/wtobarometereng/18/1. 37 HARLAND, David. The United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection: Their Impact in the First Decade. In I. Ramsay (Ed.), Consumer Law in the Global Economy . Asgate, Brookfield, USA, 1996, p. 1. 38 MICKLITZ, Hans-W., & SAUMIER, Geneviève. Enforcement and Effectiveness of Consumer Law, in MICKLITZ, Hans-W., & SAUMIER, Geneviève (Eds). Enforcement and Effectiveness of Consumer Law . Springer/ AIDC, 2018, p. 3. 39 Howells, Ramsay, & Wilhelmsson, 2010, p. 1 40 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. 41 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, Consumer Protection in the EU – Policy Overview, 2015, available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/565904/EPRS_IDA( 2015)565904_EN.pdf (Accessed on 28 July 2020).