94 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM 2. DOES ANTITRUST LAW HAVE SOMETHING TO DOWITH THE TOURISM INDUSTRY? Tourism constitutes a significant part of a country’s economy in many European states (e.g. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Austria) as well as their non-European counterparts (e.g. Morocco, Jordan11 or until recently Egypt and Tunisia). As such, it may come as a surprise that antitrust laws (as well as private antitrust enforcement) and tourism are very rarely discussed together in legal literature, at least not in any integrated manner12. Up until today, antitrust-related regulations and tourism have not been explored enough. On the contrary, in the EU single market, great emphasis was made on consumer protection, particularly in the case of tour operators’ insolvency and its consequences for the consumer. This was reflected in subsequent EU legislative initiatives that were implemented into the legal systems of the member states13. Moreover, apart from the legislation that directly addresses tourist services, there are a number of EU regulations which enhance consumer protection in the case of services relevant to the tourism industry14. The abovementioned policy is also reflected in the EU through a number of undertaken proceedings and decisions made by the authorities, courts and other bodies responsible for the enforcement of the law. One example in the EU is the landmark decision made by the Court on 12 March 2002 in the case Simone Leitner vs. TUI Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG which pertains to the compensation for non-material damage sustained during a package holiday15. Obviously, bearing in mind the significance of the tourism 11 See e.g. Travel & Tourism, Economic Impact 2018 Jordan and Travel & Tourism, Economic Impact 2018 Morocco, The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), https://www.wttc.org/. 12 A. Papatheodoru, Exploring Competition Issues in Tourism, Conference Paper, International Conference on Managing Tourism in the Global Economy, Melbourne, Australia, January 2003, p. 3 (https://www.researchgate. net/publication/286232341_Exploring_Competition_Issues_in_Tourism). 13 See e.g. Council Directive 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours. OJ L 158, 23.6.1990, pp. 5964; Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 90/314/EEC; OJ L 326 and Directive 2008/122/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 January 2009 on the protection of consumers in respect of certain aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale and exchange contracts (Text with EEA relevance). OJ L 33, 3.2.2009, pp. 1030. 14 See policies and regulations related to various types of transport in the EU at: https://europa.eu/european- -union/topics/transport_en; the United Kingdom (UK) at: https://www.gov.uk/transport and in the US at: https:// www.transportation.gov/. 15 For more see case C-168/00 – Leitner (accessible at: https://curia.europa.eu/).
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