Tourism Law in Europe

BELGIUM | OLIVIER DUGARDYN AND CARLA GHISLAIN 73 than before. Moreover, many of them offer services without realising that these services should now be considered as a package. The broadening of this definitions has a real impact on the responsibility of the professionals. Indeed, as soon as a professional combine two of the services mentioned above, it will be considered as an organiser and will have to respect all the obligations inherent to this status, which are way more heavy than for the retailer. A problem raised by the broadening of the definition is that retailers themselves often do not realise that they are packaging and that they must therefore comply with the obligations imposed on organisers. Before the 2017 Law, when a travel agency added a car rental to a hotel booking, it did not change its status, now it does. In doing so, it combines two travel services and enters into the definition of package travel. It is therefore of the utmost importance to educate travel professionals about these principles and their consequences. 3.2.2. LINKED TRAVEL ARRANGEMENT Linked travel arrangement is a concept that is making its grand appearance in the new legal framework surrounding package travel. It occurs when a professional facilitates the combination and purchase of two or more different types of travel services for the purpose of the same trip, without constituting a package, resulting in separate contracts with individual travel service providers in two cases: (a) on the occasion of a single visit or contact with his point of sale, the separate selection and separate payment of each travel service by travellers; and (b) in a targeted manner, the procurement of at least one additional travel service from another trader where a contract with such other trader is concluded at the latest 24 hours after the confirmation of the booking of the first travel service. On the one had, regarding (a), if a traveller goes to a travel agency and books a first service, pays for it, and then on the advice of the same professional books a second service and pays for it, this will be considered a linked travel arrangement. This will also be the case if an online professional facilitates this separate selection and payment. On the other hand, concerning (b), if a trader directs the traveller, after purchasing a first service, through his website to another provider and a second contract is formed with this second provider

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