Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

GERMANY | ERNST FÜHRICH 825 carriage, accommodation or rentals of motor vehicles (e.g. excursions, entrance tickets or airport car parks) 5 . This means that a package can also include a cruise as a combination of carriage and accommodation of passengers 6 . Financial services, which include travel insurance products, are not tourism services 7 . (2) Combination . Essential for a package is the combination of different types of travel services into a complete package. § 651a II No. 1 BGB regulates that a package can be combined, before any contract, by a brochure, or at the request, or based on the traveller’s selection. This is in accordance with the so-called Club Tour decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union 8 , now converted into law. In this context, dynamic packaging is gaining importance.This is a selection, bundling and booking of individual components, which the customer then purchases at a total price from various sources in “real- -time”, via an Internet portal 9 . The same principles are applied when the booking is made through a high street trader or online. A package is also available if the organiser grants the customer the right to select the travel services from the portfolio after the conclusion of the contract (travel gift box), under § 651a II 2 No. 2 BGB. (3) Legal relations. The contractual partners of the package travel contract are only the organiser and the traveller, who books for herself and/or other participants. Other persons who are not themselves bound to the contract, but in fact travel with them, like a partner or children, are only travel participants. In this contractual relationship between the traveller and the organiser, §§ 651a et seqq. must be applied. Whatever the traveller’s purposes may be to use the package (professionals or as consumer), they are irrelevant. c) Travel service provider Accommodation or transport contracts exist between the tour operator and the service providers, such as airlines or hoteliers. Similarly, §§ 651a et seqq. BGB do not regulate the relationship between the service provider and the traveller. 5 Führich/Staudinger, Reiserecht, 8 th ed. 2019 C.H. Beck, § 5 Rn. 4. 6 For ferry with cabin, see Führich/Staudinger, § 5 Rn 4. 7 Recital 17 PTD. 8 EC of 30 April 2002, C-400/00. 9 BGH of 9 December 2014, X ZR 85/12, NJW 2015, 1444, Rn 13.