Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON TRAVEL CONTRACTS (CCV) 651 given that, today, there are, besides leisure and cultural tourism, conference tourism, adventure tourism, youth tourism, religious tourism, educational tourism, and many others. Scholars highlight that there was a cultural change in tourism in the 21 st century 46 , which lead to the inclusion of activities that were previously not considered consumption, such as tourism for conferences, professional or religious training; however, long-term students who travel beyond one year are not considered tourists or migrants, but consumers 47 . Consumer law scholars 48 call attention to the challenges presented to law by international mass tourism. The traditional package travel contract is currently facing the emergence of new forms of engagement, particularly those offered through online tourism service providers, such as forfeit travel, packages tour or new forms of accommodation and transport, as dynamic packages, which require stake out a review of the premise of legislative rules governing it 49 . These challenges for the law do not derive only from technological progress (electronic booking, maps and information about tourism services in foreign places, reservation at a distance) nor from the complexities and diverse range of the current tourism contracts (package tours, time-sharing, adventure tourism, youth educational tourism, tourism for conferences, professional, language and religious training), but are also connected with changes to the tourist’s profile. Next to mass tourism to all social classes, a new elite tourism industry is blooming, and there are changes in the tourism industry (global network alliances of the transport industry, new commercial agreements to ‘codesharing’ and global chains of travel packages/tours expertise, specialisation of national travel agencies, and so on). The legal doctrine calls for the need for a “renewal of international instruments on tourism” 50 , being, one of the changes in mass tourism, the decrease in the use of travel agencies and organisers. Brazilian research data shows that many tourists no longer use travel agencies or travel 46 TUDELA, J. Madurez y insuficiencia del derecho del turismo español: su presente y sus incertidumbres, in FACAL, J. (Org.), Derecho del Turismo, FCU (2006), pp. 256 & ff. 47 BUSTO, E. D. Marco Regulatorio del turismo estudiantil en la República Argentina, in FACAL, J. (Org.), Derecho del Turismo, FCU (2006), pp. 282 & ff. 48 TONNER, Klaus. Electronic Commerce and Travel Law, In WILHELMSSON, Thomas et al. (Ed.). Consumer Law in the Information Society , Kluwer, 2001, p. 205. 49 ALVAREZ DE SOTOMAYOR, Silvia Feliu. El tratamiento legal del contrato de viaje combinado en el Derecho Internacional Privado, in 4 Cuadernos Derecho Transnacional (2012), p. 123. 50 See TUDELA. J. “Madurez y insuficiencia del derecho del turismo español: su presente y sus incertidumbres”, in Derecho del Turismo, FACAL, J. (Org.), Derecho del Turismo , Montevideo, FCU 2006, p. 251.