Sustainable Tourism Law

A NEW DRAFT REGULATION OF PACKAGE TRAVELS IN SPAIN 549 travel services are not being performed, if they will not be or will only be partially performed, or where service providers require travellers to pay for them. Obviously, all these situations must be a consequence of the liquidity problems of the organizer. This guarantee must be of enough quantity to cover the foreseeable amount of damages suffered as a consequence of the organizer’s insolvency, as well as the cost of repatriation, if necessary. Thus, the protection should be sufficient to cover the eventual payments made by or on behalf of travellers in peak season. This duty implies that the guarantee has to represent a percentage of the organizer’s turnover, which should be large enough to cover all the expenses and whose exact quantity shall depend on the kind of travels that are organized, in terms of the destinations, the means of transportation used, etc. The estimated amount of this guarantee may be calculated taking into account the most recent business information of the organizer, for instance, considering the turnover of the previous year. Anyhow, the organizer is supposed to adapt this guarantee if the risks increase. Member States must stipulate in their regulations that the guarantee for repatriations will be automatically enabled and free of charge. This provision must also cover the funding of the accommodation previous to the repatriation. Refunds regarding non-performed services must be made to the traveller without undue delay. More stringent obligations for the organizers may be considered in the national regulations. These may consist in particular of the requirements that organisers provide travellers, with a certificate documenting a direct entitlement against the provider of the insolvency protection. Member States may also require to be protected against insolvency situations in their regulations for retail agencies. Every Member State must designate the so-called “central contact points” to facilitate the administrative cooperation and the supervision of organizers operating in different Member States. These central contract points must offer all the necessary information about the protection against insolvency, in terms of the national protection requirements and the providers of insolvency protection 20 . Finally, the Directive also pays attention to the protection requirements against the insolvency of those companies providing linked travel arrangements. These companies are also required to provide a sufficient guarantee to take care of the refund of all the payments received from the travellers. This guarantee may be 20 MELGOSA ARCOS, F.J., “The protection of tourists in Directive 2015/2302/ (EU) of 25 November on package travel and linked travel arrangements”, The New Package Travel Directive , ESHTE/INATEL, Lisbon, 2017.