Welcoming Summer with Increased Obligations for Tour Operators
This year’s summer season sees the introduction of the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act (ZVPot-H), in force as of 1 July 2018. ZVPot-H transposed into Slovenian legislation Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements aimed at updating package holiday rules, adjusting the tourism market and responding to the needs of consumers and businesses in the digital technology era (for example strengthening consumer rights in online bookings, etc.).
The most significant amendment under ZVPot-H is the more detailed definition of the term “package holiday”, which is defined as all combinations of travel services that have the characteristics that consumers usually associate with package holidays, irrespective of whether the package holiday is arranged in advance or chosen by the customer. In practice, packages can be combined in different ways.
ZVPot-H also rings in major changes in the area of guarantees in case of tour operators facing insolvency. Instead of the several insolvency insurances currently available, ZVPot-H introduces a single security for the event of a tour operator’s insolvency. This single security covers the costs of repatriating travellers to their place of residence or to their place of departure. The security must also cover costs of repatriating travellers and refunding down payments in the event of a tour operator’s or company’s offering linked travel arrangements insolvency. In the future, this change could result in higher costs of insolvency liability insurance for tour operators.
The pre-contractual information that a tour operator must provide to a traveller is also broadly redefined and includes more detailed information about the purchased services. The tour operator will have to inform the traveller about the language in which the services will be provided, the size of the group, whether the trip is suitable for persons with reduced mobility, the minimum number of registered persons, voluntary or compulsory insurance to cover the costs of withdrawal from the contract, etc. In addition, tour operators will also have to draft package travel contracts in a clear, comprehensible and prominent manner, indicating the tour operator’s obligation to provide assistance to travellers that find themselves in difficulty during the trip. The contract will also have to contain all specific traveller requests/requirements.
ZVPot-H thus brings the arrangement of package holidays into line with contemporary practice, tweaks the provisions of the previous act to account for the challenges of the constantly growing and evolving tourist industry and modern marketing trends for package holidays, which is already largely an Internet-based sector. It will benefit both travellers and tour operators as its aim is to create a level playing field for all entities dealing in such travel services.
