22 January 2015 | travelweekly.co.uk business Essential news, comment and analysis TOP STORY


Travlaw’s Stephen Mason (right) and panellists at last week’s Big Tent event


ALARM AT SHIFT IN PTD


REGULATION


EU PROPOSAL FOR PACKAGE TRAVEL REFORM POSES


SERIOUS POTENTIAL RISKS. IAN TAYLOR


REPORTS FROM THE TRAVLAW BIG TENT EVENT IN LONDON


A new Package Travel Directive (PTD) will move responsibility for regulated firms from the country of sale to a company’s place of establishment, threatening to heap new risks and costs on financial protection if companies relocate to take advantage. The UK government opposes the shift but has conceded defeat on the issue in Europe where the switch forms part of the PTD now being finalised by the European Commission, Council of Ministers and European Parliament. Kate Jennings, head of aviation


80 • travelweekly.co.uk — 22 January 2015


policy implementation at the Department for Transport (DfT), warned last week: “We aren’t expecting this to change now.” She told an industry audience at the annual Travlaw Big Tent event in London: “The government position was that we didn’t support [this clause]. We thought the current approach, based on the place of sale, worked better. There was support for ‘the place of sale’ approach at the implementation level [ie among regulators] but at the political level, there was no support. There


is a strong single-market ethos behind the proposal.”


Jennings conceded the change could bring risks. “There is a risk businesses will move to centres where protection is cheapest and not offer the level of protection UK consumers might expect. There is the opposite risk that an attractive regime [like the UK’s] could get a lot of companies moving in,” she said. If that were to happen, she asked: “Have we got the means to manage that risk?”


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PICTURES: ANDY HUNTLEY


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