ETOA pushes for faster digital travel legislation

Technology and its ever-evolving usage has transformed the visitor economy in recent years.

It has altered the way travellers research, book and enjoy their experiences, as well as how travel businesses talk to each other and make partnerships.

Legislation protecting consumers and facilitating modern business practices is yet to keep pace with this rapid evolution, and we at ETOA are pushing policy-makers to move more quickly in the digital arena.

The speeds of technological adoption and legislative reform are woefully incompatible – technology moves far more swiftly than the cogs of European legislation.

The Package Travel Directive governing the bundling of travel services is long-overdue for reform; it pre-dates online trading, let alone the birth of the sharing economy. Cross-border selling laws are becoming less relevant as most operators can now sell to most markets if they so wish.

The arrival of peer-to-peer selling platforms, most notably AirBnB, has caused a huge headache for legislators. Why is a hotel bound by expensive- to-comply-with consumer protection laws, where AirBnb hosts in the same destination are not? What constitutes a package if you buy it from your local host?

Whilst one option is to reform the existing legislation to include these new entrants to the market, we would argue that the fundamental premise of bricks and mortar shops and annual brochures upon which these laws were made no longer holds true for modern business practises.

Rather than going through the laborious process of re-hashing old laws, it may be more productive and almost certainly quicker to start from the premise of what is out there in the market today.

We also argue that a lighter regulatory touch in some areas may be the answer. Instead of increasing the regulatory burden on the new disruptors to the same level as the traditional players, it would facilitate business to reduce the current burden and meet somewhere in the middle.

Proportionate regulation for all businesses in this space makes for a more level playing field. We at ETOA are active in the digital committees discussing these issues at the European Commission, and are pushing them to regulate fairly and more quickly.