INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW All this led up to numerous lawsuits that are still receiving judicial epilogues before national courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter referred to as the “CJEU” or the “Court”). Aware of the Directive’s shortcomings, the European Commission proposed its revision3 in order to “make the protection of travellers more effective, including in crisis situations”.4 The present paper aims to analyse the Commission’s proposal (hereinafter also referred to as the “Proposal”) with regard to the challenges posed to the Package Travel Directive by the COVID-19 pandemic. By critically evaluating the proposed changes in the light of the CJEU case law, it strives to assess to what extent the reform meets the needs of practice and achieves the goal of the adequate protection of travellers: Is it only adjusting the Directive to the CJEU’s interpretations and bowing to its suggestions or does it go beyond that and offer new legislative solutions? II. CHALLENGES TO THE PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE BROUGHT BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Several problems which were posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to tourism, hospitality and travel law were revealed at the very beginning of the pandemic. In its information, guidance and recommendation,5 the European Commission warned travellers against bad practices that might occur due to mass cancellations and liquidity problems of package travel organisers and reminded them of their rights granted by the Package Travel Directive that should have remained unchanged even in times of a pandemic. Despite this, several Member States adopted (emergency) laws undermining the protection offered to travellers by the Directive. For this reason, the Commission opened infringement proceedings against 11 Member States 3 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive (EU) 2015/2302 to make the protection of travellers more effective and to simplify and clarify certain aspects of the Directive of 29 November 2023, COM(2023) 905 final. 4 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_23_6147. 5 See Information on the Package Travel Directive in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic of 19 March 2020 and Commission recommendation (EU) 2020/648 of 13 May 2020 on the vouchers offered to passengers and travellers as an alternative to reimbursement for cancelled package travel and transport services in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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