introduction
& very short history of German Package Travel Law legislation
The
Germans are a most avid travelling nation. The much-used ironic title
of the Germans as the "world travel champions" is actually
well-founded:
From a financial point of view, the Germans spend more than 90 billion US$ per annum on holidays, which is ten billion dollars more more than the second placed USA with almost 80 billion, and 40 billion more than thrid-placed United Kingdom with 50 billion (2008 figures).
There are roughly 50 million German voyages per year, two thirds of them to foreign countries, and more than half of those as package tours.
Today's travelling habit of the Germans dates back roughly to the 1960ies, when the German citizens thanks to the economic boom years found themselves with money and time to spend on holidays.
The concept of travel packages, where a tour operator was solely responsible for organizing the whole voyage and the consumer conveniently "bought" the whole voyage as a bundled package for a set price, made it attractive and easy even for less enterprising consumers to have holiday trips to faraway places. Thus even though most of that early travelling was done on an individual, self-organized basis with tourists proudly using their newly acquired mechanization in the form of their cars for trips within Germany or to neighbouring countries, the new concept of travel packages quickly caught on and undoubtedly contributed to the fast growth of tourism.
Naturally those early years of a rapidly growing travel industry brought about quite a bit of friction and problems. In the early 1970ies politicians in legislation realized that there should be a specialized codified law to deal with this new sector of both business and society.
What followed was a classic case of political legislative performance: extensive work followed, producing two justice department drafts in 1973 and 1975. A third draft was introduced into parliament by the government in 1976, but could not be treated anymore due to the near end of the legislative period. After elections it was introduced into the next parliament. It was to be a very own, unique specialized law, and it was discussed at length - but finally, just before being approved in parliament, it was simply decided to shorten it from 25 rules to 11 (to "simplify" it!) and incorporate it within the civil code after § 651 BGB. 1979 saw the incorporation of §§ 651a ff BGB into the German Civil Code.
This rather sudden and half-baked, poorly reflected upon shortening at the last notice of the original carefully drafted legal system of the travel package law led to a maimed legal code that was fragmentary and raised many questions instead of providing answers.
Of course these rules have been modified and amended in the following years, but basically these are the §§ 651a ff BGB we will work with on the following pages ;-)
Despite these shortcomings, when in 1990 the European Council Directive 90/314/EEC called for member states to have certain minimum legislation for the benefit of the traveling consumers, the German §§ 651a ff BGB already largely fit the bill (pun intended). Considerably little modification was neccessary to meet the requirements of the European Package Travel Directive.
From a financial point of view, the Germans spend more than 90 billion US$ per annum on holidays, which is ten billion dollars more more than the second placed USA with almost 80 billion, and 40 billion more than thrid-placed United Kingdom with 50 billion (2008 figures).
There are roughly 50 million German voyages per year, two thirds of them to foreign countries, and more than half of those as package tours.
Today's travelling habit of the Germans dates back roughly to the 1960ies, when the German citizens thanks to the economic boom years found themselves with money and time to spend on holidays.
The concept of travel packages, where a tour operator was solely responsible for organizing the whole voyage and the consumer conveniently "bought" the whole voyage as a bundled package for a set price, made it attractive and easy even for less enterprising consumers to have holiday trips to faraway places. Thus even though most of that early travelling was done on an individual, self-organized basis with tourists proudly using their newly acquired mechanization in the form of their cars for trips within Germany or to neighbouring countries, the new concept of travel packages quickly caught on and undoubtedly contributed to the fast growth of tourism.
Naturally those early years of a rapidly growing travel industry brought about quite a bit of friction and problems. In the early 1970ies politicians in legislation realized that there should be a specialized codified law to deal with this new sector of both business and society.
What followed was a classic case of political legislative performance: extensive work followed, producing two justice department drafts in 1973 and 1975. A third draft was introduced into parliament by the government in 1976, but could not be treated anymore due to the near end of the legislative period. After elections it was introduced into the next parliament. It was to be a very own, unique specialized law, and it was discussed at length - but finally, just before being approved in parliament, it was simply decided to shorten it from 25 rules to 11 (to "simplify" it!) and incorporate it within the civil code after § 651 BGB. 1979 saw the incorporation of §§ 651a ff BGB into the German Civil Code.
This rather sudden and half-baked, poorly reflected upon shortening at the last notice of the original carefully drafted legal system of the travel package law led to a maimed legal code that was fragmentary and raised many questions instead of providing answers.
Of course these rules have been modified and amended in the following years, but basically these are the §§ 651a ff BGB we will work with on the following pages ;-)
Despite these shortcomings, when in 1990 the European Council Directive 90/314/EEC called for member states to have certain minimum legislation for the benefit of the traveling consumers, the German §§ 651a ff BGB already largely fit the bill (pun intended). Considerably little modification was neccessary to meet the requirements of the European Package Travel Directive.
© M. Hofbauer 2010; 2011(V1.08c) Impressum