Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

688 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE that it cannot be edited. The Economic Inspection requested, however, that the organiser’s standard information form should include details of the retailer’s insurance provider, which in practice is not feasible. After all, when trying to find the most appropriate organiser to provide the travel package requested by a customer, travel agents will be able to choose from a multitude of organisers. If travel agents had to enter their insurance provider’s details on each standard information form received from organisers, they would spend more time on administration than on travel sales. When the customer visits the travel agent’s premises, which is often still the case in Belgium, having this procedure would become very time consuming and practically impossible. The Economic Inspection has consequently agreed to a more feasible, practical scenario, in which the travel agent passes on the organiser’s standard information form to the traveller, without making any changes, and including the retailer’s extraordinary terms and conditions, which specify the details of the retailer’s insurance provider, in addition to other terms and conditions applicable to the sale. That way, the traveller is already provided with information during the pre-contractual phase. 38. Sale of individual travel services to a Belgian traveller by a foreign provider – Whereas Directive 2015/2302/EU applies to package travel and linked travel arrangements, the Belgian legislator has also included individual travel services in the new Travel Law. A traveller who buys an individual travel service from a Belgian organiser or retailer, who is acting as an intermediary, must be fully informed and also protected in the event of the organiser’s or retailer’s insolvency. However, Belgian travellers can now easily buy holidays/travel services abroad, but Belgium is the only Member State to extend this to the sale of individual travel services. Belgian travel entrepreneurs consequently provide travellers with a guarantee that their money is protected in the event of insolvency. This guarantee increases costs for travel entrepreneurs, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage in cross border sales. CONCLUSION It is clear that the newTravel Law is, in many ways, a translation of the European Directive 2015/2302/EU, which still contains many anomalies that could be