Tourism legislation : a comparative study

Abstract

The first chapter of this thesis proposes an overview of the various sectors which go to comprise the industry which accounts, today, for the largest single item in international trade. Some of these sectors are principal ones, because they are solely concerned with tourism whilst others are peripheral ones, their roles being mostly supportive. The services given and the relationships engendered by each, necessitate a framework of legal norms on the foundations of which alone can growth be serenely gauged. This chapter will indicate the exact concern of this thesis as well as exclusions judged to be, on the strength of the reasons given, beyond its scope. The subsequent two chapters analyse the important phenomenon of the package holiday, or inclusive tour, with an examination of the nature and function of tour operators and travel agents, as the wholesalers and retailers respectively of the tourism industry. Package holidays represent the bulk of incoming tourists to our country. This examination will also consider the not so uncommon occurrence of the bankruptcy of a tour operator as well as of a travel agent, with the consequent havoc it unleashes. Chapter four looks closely into the particular "Tourism contract" which is quite sui-generis in its essence. This leads inevitably to one of the major causes of problems in the industry, i.e. the alleged false and misleading statements given either by the tour operator, by the agent on his own behalf or, in cases of privat8 holidays, by the hoteliers, etc. which go to either ruin entirely or mar in a material way the holiday booked by the holidaymaker. Some of the most interesting cases connected with the industry deal precisely with this aspect. An equally interesting local development is our Trade Descriptions Bill certain provisions of which may effect sectors of the tourism industry in Malta. After this exercise, Chapter five focuses on the accommodation and transport sectors in as much as these determine materially the outcome of the holiday. Particular attention is had here of the nature of the travel agent when selling individual services; the operative norms of international conventions of which the traveller is often blissfully unaware and of the legal position of the private holidaymaker vis a vis the independent contractors concentrating principally on the contract of accommodation and the contract of international carriage by air. Other contracts of transport are also considered. Following this, it is proposed to view the various remedies open to the holidaymaker both in contract and in tort. Chapter six is directly concerned with this investigation and with the ways in which it has been sought to repay the holidaymaker for all that he goes through when his holiday has gone to the dogs. The line taken by the English courts is, in this context, of particular interest. The concluding chapter seeks to recapitulate possible areas of development of our laws on the of the comparative exercise embarked upon. It proposes to add a further contribution to the often proposal of amalgamating all the relevant on the strength finally mooted tourism orientated legislation into one Code of Tourism as well as to the alternative working suggestion of a string code of conduct arising from within the industry itself and reinforced, within the general ambit of private interest, by appropriate legislation.