Tourism Law in Europe

13 As already mentioned, the Package Travel Directive was transposed into Slovenian law by the Consumer Protection Act. This means that when agents sell or offer for sale packages within the meaning of the Package Travel Directive, provisions of the Consumer Protection Act apply. However, the Package Travel Directive does not regulate the activity of tourist agents comprehensively, it only addresses three aspects: (i) pre-contractual information duties, (ii) possibility to contact the organiser via the retailer, and (iii) specific obligations of the retailer where the organiser is established outside the European Economic Area. For other issues, provisions on agency contract on tourist services as contained in the Obligations Code apply. However, the provisions of the Obligations Code apply in full to cases, where tourist agents sell or offer to sale single tourist services and not travel packages within the meaning of the Package Travel Directive. They also apply to cases where travel agents are not acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession, which is rather rare in practice. The obligation of a tourist agent is to make best efforts ( obligation de moyens ), which means that he is bound to choose a proper contractual partner for the traveller according to his needs and interests and by doing so to act with due diligence (diligence of a good expert). He is liable for choosing a right contractual partner ( culpa in eligendo ) and not for a (proper) performance of a travel service. If he did not act enough diligently when choosing a tourist service provider he will liable for the damage suffered by the traveller. The Obligations Code imposes several obligations on a travel agent, such as the obligation to protect passenger’s rights and interests, pre-contractual and contractual information duty and the obligation to protect passenger’s personal data 35 . With regard to the agent’s pre-contractual information duty it was held by the Higher Court of Ljubljana that the agent shall inform the traveller whether any visas are required for the travel 36 . 35 For more, see: Stojan Cigoj, Komentar obligacijskih razmerij, Vol. IV, ČZ Uradni list SRS, Ljubljana 1986, p. 2372. 36 Decision of the Higher Court of Ljubljana I Cp 1315/2009 of 19 August 2009.