Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

68 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE travel services the financial services such as travel insurances. In addition, services that form an intrinsic part of another travel service should not be considered travel services themselves. These are, for example, the transport of luggage carried as part of passenger transport, small transport services, such as the transfer of passengers as part of a guided tour, or the transfers between a hotel and an airport or train station, meals, drinks and cleaning services provided as part of the hosting service, or the access to hotel facilities including swimming pools, saunas, spas or fitness centres included in the accommodation for travellers staying at the hotel. This also means that if, unlike what happens on cruises, overnight stay is offered as part of passenger transport by road, rail, ship or plane is provided, housing should not be considered itself a travel service if the main element is clearly the transport (Recital 17 of the Directive). Other tourist services that are not intrinsically included in passenger transport, accommodation or renting motor vehicles or motorcycles are, for example, tickets for concerts, sporting events, trips or amusement parks, guided tours, ski passes and sports equipment rental, such as ski ones or spa treatments. However, when services such as those mentioned above are combined with a single travel service of different kind, e.g. housing; they should only lead to the development of a package or to related travel services if they represent a significant part of the package value or part of the related travel services, if they have been advertised as an essential element of the trip or vacation or if they constitute for some other reason an essential feature of it. If other tourist services represent 25% or more of the value of the combination, there must be considered that in fact, they constitute a significant proportion of the value of the package or of the related travel services. It should be clarified that if other tourist services are added, for example, the accommodation in the booked hotel as an independent service, after the arrival of the traveller to the hotel, this should not be considered a package. All this must not lead to the avoidance of the provisions of the Directive, as it would happen with the organizers or retailers that offer the traveller to choose in advance additional tourist services and then, they do not provide the conclusion of the contract for such services until the moment when the first travel service has been started (Recital 18th of the Directive). Along with the package travel, the Directive provides the so-called ‘linked travel arrangement’ (art. 3.5.) that means at least two different types of travel services purchased for the purpose of the same trip or holiday, not constituting a package, resulting in the conclusion of separate contracts with the individual travel service providers, if a trader facilitates: