Many of us have already completed our summer vacation, many of us still have it ahead of us. However, most of us did not even notice that an amendment to the Civil Code entered into force on 1 July 7, which significantly changes the provisions of Part Four of Act No. 2018/89 Coll., the Civil Code, as amended (hereinafter: "Civil Code "), regarding the general legal regulation of tours.

On July 1, 7, Act No. 2018/111 Coll., amending Act No. 2018/159 Coll., on certain business conditions and the performance of certain activities in the field of tourism, as amended (hereinafter only: "Tourism Act"), and related laws, i.e. the Civil Code.

A change of a similar nature was more than necessary. The current legislation was outdated, even in the legal order of the European Union, from which our regulation is directly based. Therefore, the European Union itself proceeded to modernize legislation in this area and the result was the adoption of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel services and combined travel services, amending the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council ( EC) No. 2006/2004 and Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and on the repeal of Council Directive 90/314/EEC (hereinafter: "Guideline"). Act No. 111/2018 Coll. is a transposition of the Directive and projects its provisions into our legal system. The reason for the changes was primarily the need for greater protection of tour participants as consumers, as well as taking into account the modernization of technology with the advent of the Internet and the related purchase of tours via the Internet, i.e. remotely. The biggest shortcomings of the previous legislation are explicitly stated in the explanatory report to Act No. 111/2018 Coll.: "Among the shortcomings of the existing legislation and its application are in particular:

a) Ambiguous definitions – e.g. tour, start of tour, repatriation.
b) The question of scope – relation to business trips – according to business associations, the strict legal regulation applicable to the purchase of a tour by a consumer and applicable to business trips is disproportionately strict.
c) Absence of express provisions governing consumer rights in cases of extraordinary and unavoidable circumstances, when and under what circumstances the contract can be withdrawn.
d) The vagueness of some provisions – e.g. on assistance in an emergency – without a general description of what is considered the organizer's obligation to provide assistance, entrepreneurs were exposed to legal uncertainty.
e) Unclear provisions regarding the duty of travel agencies in cases where unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances cause travelers to be stranded at the destination. The lack of clarity resulted in entrepreneurs having no certainty as to how long and to what extent they would bear the costs of continuing the tour."

In essence, all of the above-mentioned deficiencies have been removed by the amendment, and the legal regulation is now more comprehensive and clear. First of all, what a tourism service actually is was defined in more detail in Section 1a of the Tourism Act:

"The tourism service is:

a) customer transport,
b) accommodation that is not part of transport and is not intended for residential purposes,
c) rental of a car, motorcycle or other motor vehicle, or
d) another service from the field of tourism, which is not inherently part of any of the servicesb of tourism referred to in letter a), b) or c), in particular the sale of tickets for cultural or sports events, the organization of trips, guided tours, the sale of ski passes or the rental of sports equipment."

Section 1b of the Act on Tourism shows what is included under the term tour:

"A tour is a set of at least two different types of tourism services according to § 1a for the purposes of the same trip or stay, if

a) a set of these services is offered by a single entrepreneur, or is compiled at the request or according to the customer's choice even before concluding a single tour contract, or
b) regardless of whether separate contracts are concluded with individual tourism service providers, the following tourism services are:

1. purchased at a single point of sale and selected by the customer before committing to pay their price,
2. offered, sold or charged for the total price,
3. advertised or sold with the designation "tour" or with a similar designation,
4. compiled after the conclusion of a contract that entitles the customer to choose from different types of tourism services, or
5. purchased from individual tourism service providers through an online reservation system, in which the entrepreneur, with whom the first contract is concluded, transfers the name, payment details and electronic address of his customer to another entrepreneur, and with this entrepreneur, a contract for another tourism service is concluded within 24 hours after confirming the reservation of the first tourism service."

The new legal regulation is therefore stricter for organizers in the field of tourism, especially because it protects consumers more. The pre-contractual information obligation is tightened and the tour contract must contain much more information than before, such as whether any special conditions/requirements have been agreed with the customer, whether the tour is suitable for people with reduced mobility or, for example, must be listed contact person to whom the participant can turn in the event of bankruptcy of the travel agency. In the Civil Code, we no longer find the provisions of § 2527, paragraph 3 of the Civil Code, which previously allowed the organizer to refer to the given catalog in the tour confirmation, which should have listed everything necessary. Now everything should be included in one document, which in my opinion is clearer and more transparent, after all, few people take the offer catalog with them on vacation. According to § 2528, paragraph 2 of the Civil Code, the tour confirmation should now contain a statement that the organizer: "is responsible for the proper provision of all agreed tourism services and that it is obliged to provide assistance to the customer in difficulties.It is also beneficial for the customer to change the provisions of § 2541 of the Civil Code, in the sense that the law at least approximately determines the form in which assistance to the customer in need should take place. However, this help is not unlimited. The new law also states that if the customer causes difficulties himself, the organizer can charge for his help compensation for purposefully incurred costs.

In particular, the data included in the tour confirmation are further extended. The consumer therefore has much more information about the provided service - the tour, and thus there can be no misunderstanding between the parties or even an arbitrary change of the parameters of the offered tour by the organizer. The conditions under which the organizer can change the price of the tour have also been clarified - now the right of the organizer to increase the price of the tour due to an increase in costs must also correspond to the customer's right to reduce the price of the tour in the event of a reduction in the price of these costs.

A significant change can also be seen in section § 2524 of the Civil Code: This provision should now protect the customer from the unfair practices of travel agencies, which, in order to lure the client, sell tours at the lowest possible prices, but as a result, the customer had to pay extra without being with agreed to by this expense when concluding the contract.

If we take a look at the changes in the Tourism Act, the most significant here is probably the new Title III, which enshrines the establishment of a guarantee fund. Pursuant to Section 10f of the Act on Tourism, the guarantee fund is a special-purpose pool of funds to which contributions are sent by individual travel agencies, fines collected for offenses committed in accordance with this Act also flow here, or other funds are procured by the State Housing Development Fund, which is also responsible to manage funds in the guarantee fund. The funds are the property of the Czech Republic.

The guarantee fund serves as insurance in the event that the travel agency becomes insolvent. As soon as the insurance company discovers that the travel agency's policy is insufficient to cover all payments to customers, i.e. exceeds the insurance limit, the guarantee fund comes into play. From the guarantee fund, customers are paid everything they are entitled to through the insurance company, so they should not lose any money. The insurance company should handle everything for them with the guarantee fund - the insurance company will provide the guarantee fund with all the necessary documents and the guarantee fund will then pay it the necessary amount. If the travel agency has established a bank guarantee in case of bankruptcy, the procedure is the same as in the case of insurance premiums.

All travel agencies contribute to the guarantee fund according to the amount of their planned annual sales from the sale of tours and from the sale of tourism services that are part of the combined travel services. The annual contribution to the guarantee fund is then a maximum of 0,1% of the above-mentioned base. This amount can be adjusted for the following year by the Ministry by decree. The annual contribution is due by December 31 for the following year.

Payment of funds to the guarantee fund is the responsibility of the travel agency, and in case of non-payment, an offense is committed. According to the Act on Tourism, a fine of up to 1 million crowns can be imposed for this offence.

In the future, we will see whether the above-described change in the legal system will have a positive impact on the provision of tourism services, i.e. more satisfied customers. Each of us wants to relax on vacation, or experience something nice, and not spend the whole vacation worrying about the fact that we didn't get what we ordered or that we don't even have a vacation or money.

Source: epravo