Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

BELGIUM | OLIVIER DUGARDYN 669 cooperation in the EU, one has to admit that, in practice, the market for insolvency protection is far from unified, which hampers the development of a true single travel market. Insolvency protection is still usually only available at a national level, as providers who offer European-wide insolvency protection are inexistent or very rare. Most insurers only cover travel contracts concluded with travellers of their Member State or a selection of Members States. On top of that, the conditions required by the national providers differ considerably, as there are no uniform admission and operational rules. This constitutes a serious obstacle for the growing number of travel professionals who are selling cross-border products and who are thus obliged to conclude a separate insolvency insurance in each Member State where they are active. 16. It is worth mentioning that, in Belgium, the insolvency protection is offered by two organizations, the Travel Guarantee Fund and Amlin. The Travel Guarantee Fund is a recognized mutual insurance undertaking under Belgian law, established by the travel industry in 1995 5 . AMLIN is a global insurance company 6 . 5. ABOUT THE PRECONTRACTUAL AND CONTRACTUAL INFORMATION DUTY 17. Belgian travel professionals have struggled to reorganize their (online or traditional) business in such a way to comply with the strict precontractual and contractual information duty. The Law requires the following information to be provided to the traveller: Precontractual stage 1/ the standard information forms 2/ the main characteristics of the travel services as summed up in art. 5 §1 Contractual stage 1/ the standard information forms 2/ the main characteristics of the travel services as summed up in art. 5 §1 3/ eight specific points summed up in art. 11 5 https://www.gfg.be/en/. 6 https://www.msamlin.com/content/dam/ms-amlin/consumer/Markets/Belgium/IPID/French/IPID_Insolvabilit %C3%A9%20agence%20de%20voyage_2019_F.pdf.downloadasset.pdf.