Government Travel Advice and the Holiday Contract Stephen Mason1 Abstract; 1. Legal Background; 2. What is the Nature of a Holiday Contract? A Special Case?; 3. The Duty of Care; 4. Conclusion. ABSTRACT There has been much debate, during the COVID-19 crisis, as to whether, if a Government Authority (in the UK, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – FCDO) advises against all but essential travel, or similar, to a destination. This means that the 2015 Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Directive (PTD) requires package organisers to cancel package holidays covered by the Advice, as well as refund consumers, even if, for example, the flight is still operational and the hotel is still open. This article explores that issue from a UK perspective. 1. LEGAL BACKGROUND a) Statutory The PTD refers that there are provisions which grant consumers a full refund. Among other options, there is Article 11, according to which significant changes pre-departure can be made; however, consumer refund rules must relate to aspects of the package described in Article 5(1)(a) PTD, none of which appear to be relevant to Government advice without doing violence to the language. Article 12(3) permits package organisers to cancel holidays if facing unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances (UECs), but, in this advice, we are discussing consumer rights to cancel, not the rights of organisers to do so. Therefore, for the present purposes, the provision with the most relevance is Article 12(2), which gives power to the consumer to cancel without penalty in the following terms: 1 Senior Counsel at Travlaw Legal Services Ltd.
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