Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

674 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE integral part of the pre-contractual duty of organisers and retailers, who are acting as intermediaries for an individual travel service. Book VI of the CEL primarily aims to regulate market practices and to protect the consumer, without prejudice to any relevant extraordinary rules adopted in specific sectors 5 . 3. Inaccurate descriptions of the scope of application of travel service sales – Similar to the former Travel Contract Law, dated 1994, the Belgian legislator has made the sale of individual services part of the scope of application of the new Travel Law. However, the legislator did not apply due diligence when formulating Article 3.3 of the new Travel Law, i.e. to the extent that it is purported that the Law applies to “travel services sold individually by an organiser or retailer, who is acting as an intermediary” 6 . First and foremost, it is unclear whether the section “who is acting as an intermediary” merely applies to the retailer or also to the organiser. Moreover, based on the article, which only mentions organiser and retailer 7 , only professionals who sell individual travel services, in addition to packages, will be subject to the law. A professional who never sells packages, only plane tickets, is not within the scope of application of the new Travel Law. 4. Excluded from the scope of application – The Belgian legislator has not taken the opportunity of including trips of less than 24 hours and without an overnight stay within the law’s scope of application. The legislator has also opted not to apply the law to travel organised occasionally, on a not-for-profit basis and exclusively for a limited group of travellers. Also, the new Travel Law does not apply to business trips arranged via a general agreement. However, the Belgian legislator has not provided a definition of this ‘general agreement’. In this case, the Belgian legislator did not want to go beyond the definition of the 2015/2302/EU European Directive. 5 P. NELISSEN GRADE and I. MEYERS, De Reiswet (The Travel Law) 21 November 2017 , Mechelen, Wolters Kluwer, 2019, 43. 6 Art. 3.3° of the Law pertaining to the sale of package travel, linked travel arrangements and travel services, dated 21 November 2017, BS 1 December 2017, 106.673. 7 The definition of both an “organiser” and a “retailer” in the Law of 21 November 2017 relates to package travel. Art. 2, 8° and 9° of the Law pertaining to the sale of package travel, linked travel arrangements and travel services, dated 21 November 2017, BS 1 December 2017, 106.674.