No unnecessary overregulation of the business travel sector

At a workshop meeting organised by GEBTA in Brussels on 29 February 2012, business travel management companies (TMCs) explained to the Commission and Members of the European Parliament why there is no need to include business travel in the European legislation regulating package travel, which is currently under revision. European package travel Directive has been adopted in 1990 with the objective of protecting the interests of consumers buying a package holiday by defining obligations of organisers and retailers and providing specific consumer rights. The Directive covers pre-arranged holiday packages which combine at least two of the following services, notably transport, accommodation and/or other tourist services. The Commission intends to revise the legislation to take account of technological developments and changes in the way package travel services are sold. The business travel management companies (TMCs) are concerned that they may fall in the scope of the revised package travel Directive and will be forced to comply with a number of obligations that are not adapted to the business travel sector. At the workshop meeting, the TMCs highlighted the differences between the services that they provide to their corporate customers and the typical travel packages provided to leisure customers. For one, while package travel contracts are destination specific and concluded for a limited period of time, TMCs provide travel management services under long-term commercial agreements that do not focus on a destination but rather on the travel policy of the corporate customer and the services to be provided by the TMC. For business travellers, flexibility is key. They want to be able to change or cancel their bookings at short notice, without being overburden with information requirements, such as those provided in the package travel Directive. Said new elected Chairman of GEBTA, Dr. Mathias Warns: “TMCs provide their corporate customers with comprehensive travel solutions, which are very different from the pre-arranged travel packages. It is of paramount importance that the European legal environment takes account of the needs and specificities of TMCs and of their corporate customers, in order to allow them to maintain a highly efficient business model that meets the requirements of the corporate customers.”

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