Speaking at Abta’s Travel Law seminar on Wednesday (10 May), Deloitte Legal director Luke Golding said the government’s plans to deregulate UK domestic breaks – partially or completely – came as a "very interesting development".
“If this proposal were to go ahead, it would provide a rare example in the opposite direction, constituting a reduction in the overall regulatory burden affecting the UK travel industry,” he told delegates.
UK travel businesses have, broadly, been subject to a continuous increase in regulatory burden since the introduction in 1992 of the rules that were to become the modern PTRs, with Abta’s director of legal affairs Luke Petherbridge warning businesses they would face the strain from the volume of reforms proposed for this year.
The government’s Department for Business and Trade, the seminar heard, is understood to be considering freeing domestic packages from the auspices of the Package Travel Regulations, with an initial consultation expected in the near future.
The PTRs, in their current form, prevent UK hotels and accommodation providers from adding value to their services by packaging hotel rooms with local attractions. Golding, though, said: “It can be argued that UK consumers taking part in a UK holiday require less protection than those consumers who are travelling abroad."
The Deloitte director said the government could take a broad or limited approach to reforming the PTRs to free up the domestic holiday sector.
A broad approach would remove UK holidays from the scope of PTRs altogether, but such a proposition – Golding said – could present challenges such as customers being stranded if a transport provider was to fail while the holiday is under way.
“So to address this type of risk, a more limited approach can be taken, whereby a UK holiday will only be considered as a package if it includes carriage of passengers,” he added.
This approach was later hailed by a panel of industry stakeholders, including Abta senior solicitor Paula Macfarlane and head of regulation and compliance at business-to-business service firm Kognitiv, Andy Cooper.
