Package holiday protection

CWU members who book holidays online from the end of 2017 will be better protected. The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 mean that, if you have booked a ‘package holiday’ your tour operator can be pursued, under UK jurisdiction, if you are injured on holiday as a result of a failing of part of that package. This means the claim is pursued through the UK Courts, and UK Limitation periods apply. A tour operator is judged against local standards rather than the standards of health and safety in the UK. The amount of compensation awarded follows in line with accidents that happen in the UK and are pursued in the UK.

A claim is a ‘Package Holiday’ in line with the Package Travel Regulations if it has a combination of at least 2 of the following:

• Transport
• Accommodation
• Other tourist services not ancillary to transport or accommodation and accounting for a significant proportion of the package

The combination of components must be pre-arranged and the combination must be sold or offered for sale at an inclusive price. So if accommodation only is booked, and then tours or transport are booked separately either at a later date, or at resort, the holiday will not be covered by the regulations.

Finally, the service must cover a period of more than 24 hours or include overnight accommodation. If, for example, accommodation and flights are supplied by 2 different suppliers, but they are put together (‘packaged’) and supplied to the consumer by the same party then the holiday will still fall under the package travel regulations.

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