Tourism Law in Europe

regard to all the circumstances of the case, allow him to retain or, as the case may be, recover the whole or any part of the sums so paid or payable, not being an amount in excess of the expenses so incurred (…)”. This is a fairly typical piece of English legislation in that it provides a framework within which the courts have a wide discretion to do justice between the parties, so that a consumer bargaining with a business acquires a higher level of protection than a business engaging in a business to business contractual relationship. To date the UK government has not legislated, as have other EU governments, to amend the requirement to refund would-be travellers whose holiday plans have been cancelled as a result of the pandemic. On the other hand, other than encouraging the provision of refunds and credit notes, neither has it acted decisively to protect consumers. Its response to the refund crisis has been one of legislative inactivity. It remains to be seen whether the UK courts take on the challenge of balancing the competing interests of consumers and an industry very significantly harmed by the pandemic; and if so, how the balance will be struck. 8. Conclusion As a Member State of the EU the traditional hostility of the UK jurisdictions towards the imposition of strict liability and to the reversal of the burden of proof in favour of Claimants has been softened by the consumer-friendly legislation emanating from the bloc. Now that the UK has left the EU, however, it is free to legislate to apportion risk in accordance with its historical preference. It will be interesting to see how the government and courts respond to this freedom, and it may be that the flood of claims arising from Covid-19 holiday cancellations will provide a test of the courts’ mettle, given the government’s inactivity in legislating in response to them. Mindful of the courts’ approach to claims arising out of gastric illness, the author suspects that tourism law in the UK is unlikely to take a more consumer-friendly route, and insofar as it diverges from EU law, it is likely to favour businesses over tourists, as in the implementation of the new Package Travel Directive. Time will tell; but for the moment it appears that the golden age of consumer protection in the UK ended when the country left the EU.