Introduction

The legislation presented in this chapter as ‘European travel law’ regulates areas as diverse as package travel, timeshare, hotel services and passenger transport. It can be found in various forms: (i) in international conventions ratified by the EU or otherwise incorporated into the acquis communautaire or national law; (ii) in secondary EU law as directly applicable regulations; (iii) as directives to be transposed by Member States; and (iv) in the form of decisions and recommendations. In the Treaty, reference is made to the internal market, to transport, consumer protection and tourism (Article 3(c), (f), (t) and (u) [Article 4(2)(a), (f), (g) and Article 6(d) TFEU]), but no single provision provides the foundation for travel law. Instead legislation may be based on Article 300 [Article 351 TFEU], Articles 71 and 80 [Articles 91 and 100 TFEU] or Article 95 [Article 114 TFEU], depending on the topics regulated and the instrument used. Further adding to variety, the beneficiaries of these rules are rarely referred to as travellers but sometimes as passengers, sometimes as guests and more often simply as consumers with no single definition applicable across the relevant acquis.

Why should a collection of legal material as diverse as this be given a generic denomination at all? Is it justifiable to summarise these diverse strands in one chapter of a collection on European private law? Arguably it is, because the common themes of European travel law are the activity pursued, that is, people travelling, and the service provided, that is, travel services; therefore, a factually conceived grouping rather than a legal concept. However, rather than categorising the law into different travel sectors, this chapter will instead concentrate on a more fruitful analysis of the regulatory layers descending from conventions to soft law. This is, perhaps, the most intriguing attribute of travel law in the context of European private law: while most of the legislation presented in this Companion is the law of directives, it is an unusual, perhaps unique, feature of European travel law that it exhibits the whole range of supranational regulatory instruments. Often derived from conventions and set in a cross-border context, it is also the area of European private law most favourably disposed towards the internationalisation of the law.