Tourism Law in Europe

offered a full refund under Article 12(2) – but no compensation – if they choose to cancel (and of course, in addition, the Company can offer alternatives or a voucher as options too – the choice is the consumer’s). Whilst, as stated, the PTD does not mention FCDO or Government advice, they nonetheless support what we are saying can be found within the Package Travel legislation, namely Recital 31, which gives the following guidance: “[Travellers] should also have the right to terminate the package travel contract without paying any termination fee where unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances will significantly affect the performance of the package. This may cover for example warfare, other serious security problems such as terrorism, significant risks to human health such as the outbreak of a serious disease at the travel destination , or natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes or weather conditions which make it impossible to travel safely to the destination as agreed in the package travel contract ” (emphasis added). It is clear that the European Commission and Institutions did not think that Article 12(2) would be rendered inapplicable, just because flights were operating, or the hotel was open. There is one defence which we agree can be deployed to an Article 12(2) consumer claim, and that is that the cancellation is premature. There are cases which show that there is no obligation on an organiser to cancel, while there remains a “flicker of hope” that the holiday can continue. Thus, if the consumer purports to cancel when it is too early to say whether Government advice will still be likely to be in place at the time of travel, it may be that cancellation charges can be levied.