According to European Package Travel Directive, tour operators must refund the entire travel price within 14 days if a trip cannot take place due to unavoidable extraordinary circumstances.

The tour operator has already provided work before the start of the trips: consultation, offer preparation, booking of travel services (flights, hotels, excursions, transfers). Beyond that, in particular, small and medium-sized special tour operators, make advance payments for their customers by pre-payments of flights, hotels, etc.

In the event of cancellation due to a pandemic, the tour operator may not charge his customers for either the service provided or advance payments made.

Since 18th March 2020, the back completion of already booked journeys takes place. Again, tour operators provide work for the cancellation of services for which they don´t get paid. They receive no or delayed refunds from the airlines. Money already paid abroad usually won´t be refunded, the tour operators themselves only receive credit notes. Many special tour operators have already been forced to close down due to the Package Travel Directive.

For the consumer, this means that the variety of tour operators in the EU is disappearing. Small and medium-sized tour operators who organize individual trips cannot survive. Corporations are supported by the government and will dictate the market and prices in the future.

We demand that customers pay a proportion of the cancellation fees in the event of cancellation due to force majeure.

The possible legal framework for this amendment has been pointed out by Prof. Dr. Führich in an open letter to Minister of Justice Mrs. Lambrecht: https://reiserechtfuehrich.com/2020/08/19/offener-brief-an-justizministerin-experte-fordert-neue-storno-regelung-bei-pandemien/

If you also would like to maintain a variety of offers and tour operators in the European travel industry and you believe that the work done and the time invested should be fairly paid, we would ask you to vote for an amendment of the European Package Travel Directive.