If you go through a travel agency to book an isolated tourist service (reserve a room, hire a car, etc.) you will be more protected than if you handle the booking yourself directly, because you will have signed a travel intermediary contract with the agency (ruled by law of 16th February 1994).
This law lays down that the travel intermediary should correctly inform the traveller about the characteristics of the contract and the service reserved. The intermediary also has a general obligation to offer advice.
With greater precision: the intermediary should send the traveller a copy of the contract, which should include a specific amount of information. This would include, for example, a description of the accommodation, when the contract refers to a stay.
So the intermediary is basically obliged to inform and to advise the traveller, and should also handle the booking.
If you book a complete trip with a tour operator, you will be protected even further. Indeed, in this case it is question of a travel organisation contract, likewise regulated by the law of 16th February 1994.
As well as the obligation to inform (which is shared with the intermediary), the organiser is also responsible for correctly executing the travel organisation contract. Thus, if in the course of travel, any services which are part of the contract cannot be performed, the organiser should provide the traveller with an alternative that is at least equivalent and is free. If the services provided do not coincide with the ones promised, the organiser should compensate the traveller for the difference. To summarise, if something does not go as planned, the organiser is obliged to provide the traveller with help and assistance, and also to propose an acceptable solution.
The law holds the tour operator responsible even when his obligations must be covered by other providers.
An example will help you understand the respective parties roles better.
If you book a hotel room abroad and find it does not meet your expectations, you should try sort the problem out yourself with the hotel, or else file a legal complaint.
If the booking is made through a travel agency in your country, you may ask the agency to intervene on your behalf. If the agency has made a mistake over the booking, then the agency is responsible and you can claim compensation from it, or file legal action against it in your own country. If the problem is not the agency's fault, but the hotel is to blame, you will be in the same position as if you had made the booking directly with the establishment. You will then have to resolve the problem with the hotel, or submit a complaint.
Lastly, if you have gone through a tour operator to book your trip, and the stay at the hotel has not gone as forecast, you can demand that the tour operator finds you another hotel, pays you compensation or repatriates you to your own country, depending on the seriousness of the problem. The tour operator cannot argue that only the hotel is responsible for your problems. If you do not obtain a satisfactory answer, you may claim compensation from the tour operator, and file legal action from your own country.
If you go to a foreign travel agency or a tour operator, you will enjoy similar protection, at least within the European Union, because the directive on combined travel has standardised the laws of the Member States on the matter. If there are any problems, a complaint may always be filed at court….but this is always a serious matter.
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