Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

98 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE constitute the concepts of package travel or linked travel arrangements. That is why these expressions are used at the start of each one of the excluded cases. In effect, they are combinations of tourist services, paid for jointly, to which other services may be added and paid for separately. But there is strong evidence to justify their exclusion, as we shall see below. The situation envisaged in point (a) excludes package travel or linked travel arrangements with a duration of less than 24 hours unless overnight accommodation is included. The norm is perfectly in keeping with the commonly-accepted concept of a tourist as a traveller who stays at least 24 hours in a place other than his/her place of habitual residence and spends the night at that place. As you can notice, the fundamental point for understanding the exclusion of these trips from the scope of application of the Directive is the absence of an overnight stay, not the effective duration of the trip. As such, if the traveller spends the night at the destination, the trip falls within the scope of application of the Directive, even when the trip takes less than 24 hours. The second case, under point (b), refers to trips organized occasionally, on a not-for-profit basis and only for a limited group of travellers. In this case, the exclusion depends on all three of the requirements listed under the norm being met, as may be seen from the use of the copulative conjunction ‘and’. The fundamental reason for the exclusion is that the trip referred by the norm falls outside of what is commonly understood to be a business activity. This is established by the sporadic or occasional nature of the organization and by the absence of a profit motivation. Sporadic or occasional should be understood as, in my opinion, that which lacks regularity. Somewhat more confusing is the reference to the ‘limited group of travellers’. How can we perceive this? Once again, a reasonable social interpretation may be very useful, and it might also be useful to compare with the average number of travellers in trips organized by traders for profit. The norm does not mention the price. There may well be a price, given that, in principle, the norm does not envisage a free holiday, but the value thereof is strongly conditioned by the absence of a profit motivation, which it requires. Thus the price of the travel cannot exceed the effective cost of the services used. Finally, the third case under point (c) refers to a situation that is quite frequent, where a tourism trader concludes a general agreement with another person for the arrangement of the business travels of that person or for the personnel at the service thereof. This class of agreements offers benefits for both