ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Community legislation directly regulating tourism services. The regulation of tourism came on to the agenda of the European Community in the beginning of the 1980s. In 1982 the Commission issued the first guidelines for a Community policy on tourism. As package tours are usually paid in advance, and are often relatively expensive, the insolvency of the organiser or retailer before or during the tour may cause considerable losses and expenses for the consumer. The Package Travel Directive is certainly the most detailed attempt to regulate a part of contract law in the consumer area so far adopted at the EC level. As is typical of EC consumer law measures, one centre of gravity of the Directive relates to information and transparency. The Package Travel Directive does not contain any general regulation of the consequences of breach of contract by the organiser or retailer.
