11 8 TOURISM LAW IN EUROPE A travel services intermediary is authorised, in particular, to sell package travels on behalf of a travel agency – not being able to organise package travels himself – and to sell or broker individual travel services. For instance, they can arrange transport, accommodation, catering, tour guide services, airline ticket sales and bookings, sales and bookings of railway and bus tickets, including seat reservations. If a travel services intermediary intends to sell package travels of foreign travel agencies established in the European Economic Area, he must notify the Ministry for Regional Development. Travel services intermediaries may not sell package travels of foreign travel agencies that do not have an adequate security covering potential insolvency. II.3. Tour Guide The concept of a “tour guide” and its basic duties are laid down by the Tourism Act. Other regulations governing the tour guides’ activities include the Trade Act and Government regulations specifying the contents of individual trades. The name of the relevant field of unqualified trade is “operation of a travel services intermediary and tour guide activities”. A trade licence for the operation of unqualified trade may be granted to anyone who meets the general conditions for the operation of a trade, i.e. the conditions of clean criminal record and legal capacity, with no other prerequisites required. As of 1 March 2021, tour guides must possess a special official licence to operate in the Czech Republic. There are two types of these licences: 1st degree or 2nd degree – without or with proof of professional qualifications, respectively –, so customers themselves choose whether they will use the services of a 1st or 2nd degree tour guide. The duty to have a special tour guide licence does not apply to guides operating in buildings and in publicly accessible territories defined in the Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection Act6. An EU citizen, authorised to operate as a tour guide in a Member State’s territory, may temporarily provide services in the Czech Republic under articles 56 et seq. of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Likewise, the same also applies, under the same articles, for a legal person, whose internal affairs are governed by a Member State’s laws, who has his registered office, central administration or principal place of business in a Member State and who is authorised to operate as a tour guide in the territory of any EU Member State. This also applies for tour guides from the EEA and 6 Act No. 114/1992 Coll., on nature conservation and landscape protection, as amended.
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