194 TOURISM LAW IN EUROPE Scope: Tour operators must take out insurance to cover the financial consequences of their professional civil liability. This guarantee also covers damage caused to clients, service providers or outsider as a result of faults, errors of fact or law, omissions or negligence committed during the offer, organisation and sale of tourist services, both by the operator and by his employees and nonemployees. This liability, provided by Article L. 211-18 of the Tourism Code, is particularly heavy and derogatory to general law. Payment: Applicants wishing to be registered in the register of trour and holiday agents and other tour operators must firstly pay the costs of processing their registration file, which constitutes a condition of admissibility of the application. If this is not the case, otherwise, the file cannot be the subject of an instruction by the secretariat of the committee, and a fortiori of a presentation68. Amount: The amount of the application fee is fixed by order69 corresponds to the payment of the registration fees and more specifically to the costs of maintaining the register. To this day, the amount is fixed at 100 €70. Observation: This compulsory payment requirement is problematic and has been discussed. Indeed, the tour operator wishing to register has a public service obligation since he cannot operate without this prior condition. Nevertheless, this point was not raised during the parliamentary debates and, to our knowledge, there has not yet been any appeal on this issue, it is normal because of the small amount of the required sum. 3.3.3. CONSIDERATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES Electronic means: The Legal Act of 22 July 2009 incorporated the use of new technologies into the provisions of the Tourism Code. The operator was initially given the choice of applying for registration by post or electronic means71 the electronic way has been preferred by Atout France because it speeds up the procedure for examining files. However, the procedure is now completely electronic. The registration process must therefore be carried out on the Atout France website72 by creating a personal account. An email address is required for each registration. An electronic platform has been set up to allow the operator 68 French Tourism Code, art. L. 141-3 al. 7. 69 Order of 23 Dec. 2009 relating to the amount of registration fees for travel agents and other operators of the sale of trips and stays and operators of passenger cars with driver, OJ 27 Dec. 2009. 70 French Tourism Code, art. D 211-21-1. 71 French Tourism Code, art. R. 211-20. 72 See https://registre-operateurs-de-voyages.atout-france.fr.
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