Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

LITHUANIA | DANGUOLĖ BUBLIENĖ AND IEVA NAVICKAITĖ-SAKALAUSKIENĖ 999 -contractual information orally. That is not precise enough and, in authors’ view, not compatible with the Travel Directive, since it goes beyond the requirements set out by its provisions, especially having in mind that, as it is explained in paragraph 27 of its preamble, the information requirements laid down in this Directive are exhaustive. Taking into account that pre-contractual information requirements are of maximum harmonisation nature, Member States are not allowed to introduce additional or stringent form requirements. Hence, obviously, this implementation scenario, chosen by the national legislator, can be reasonably criticised. In the authors’ view, it could be that the national legislator was misled and, when transposing the rules on pre-contractual information, did not separate the two means in which the pre-contractual information has to be provided to the traveller, and which are set in Article 5 (1) of Travel Directive. According to the Directive, standard information is provided by means of the relevant form; also the tourist must be provided with additional information, listed in this Article. Whereas Article 6.748 of Civil Code lists pre-contractual information, not making clear that some of it has to be provided through the relevant form. What is more – having in mind that the standard form is usually (but not necessarily) understood as a way to provide information in writing, the national legislator set the requirement that all pre-contractual information must be provided in writing, which, as mentioned above, is not in line with the Directive. Regarding the communication of changes to the pre-contractual information to the traveller, Article 6.748 (2) states that “the tour organiser shall inform the tourist of any changes to the information referred to in the first paragraph of this Article in a clear, comprehensible and prominent manner as requested by the tourist. The tour organiser shall provide all this information on a durable medium before the package travel contract is concluded”. It should be noted that, on the one hand, the national legislator set out the additional element that the communication about the information’s alteration has to be provided in the form, requested by the tourist, which raises the question, whether it can be done not necessarily in writing, but also in oral form. On the other hand, after making the traveller’s choice possible, the legislator prevents it by introducing the form of durable medium. In the authors’ view, this requirement to provide the information on a durable medium goes beyond the standard protection introduced by the Travel Directive. Moreover, the requirement to provide information in a prominent manner, set in the Travel Directive, is changed to the requirement to provide the tourist with non-misleading information.