TA Package Travel Regulations Submission

Thank you for the opportunity to provide input on updating the Package Travel Regulations in order to simplify and clarify the requirements of businesses that sell package holidays to consumers.

The Tourism Alliance is the voice of the UK tourism industry. We bring together 75 different trade associations and membership bodies from across the tourism industry which represent approximately 200,000 individual businesses.

The Tourism Alliance has long advocated for charges to the Package Travel Regulations in order to support the UK’s domestic tourism industry. We are especially supportive of the proposal to remove accommodation businesses that provide “other tourism services” to customers from the definition of a package as this will have significant benefits to both domestic tourism businesses and local economies without any detriment to consumers.

Indeed, it is our view that the ability of small businesses to provide “added value” deals to consumers will significantly benefit customers by providing increased consumer choice and lower prices in the domestic market.

We recognise that the outbound operators view is that removing accommodation and other tourism service packages from the bounds of the regulations will give domestic businesses and unfair competitive advantage while inbound operator have concerns that removing these packages from the regulations will make it more difficult to sell the UK to European inbound visitors who want the protection afforded by the regulations.

However, on balance, the Tourism Alliance supports the removal of these packages from the regulations as the outbound tourism sector is robust and continues to grow while the majority of inbound operators will be providing transport as part of the package provided to inbound visitors and so they will remain protected by the regulations.