For many years, package travel rules were seen as something that concerned traditional tour operators. Liability in the travel industry was determined by contracts. Businesses invested significant effort in defining their role within the transaction. A company was either a travel organiser, a retailer or merely an intermediary and legal risk followed those labels.
When the original package travel rules were introduced in 1990, travel services were usually sold in a fairly straightforward way. Consumers bought holiday packages from travel agents, and responsibility for the trip was generally easy to identify.
When the customer journey becomes a product
That is no longer always the case. A traveller can now book flights, hotels, transfers and activities through a single online journey, even though each service may be provided by a different business. While those distinctions may matter from a contractual perspective, they are often invisible to the traveller. The law is increasingly taking the same view.
This is one of the reasons why regulators are looking more closely at how travel services are offered and sold in practice. The Package Travel Directive has long reflected the principle that responsibility should follow the substance of a transaction rather than the label attached to it. Simply presenting a business as an intermediary does not necessarily remove its obligations. The 2026 reforms continue along the same path by further clarifying when combinations of travel services sold through online booking journeys can constitute a package.
Why labels matter less than reality
Traditionally, package travel compliance has been viewed primarily as a legal function. However, some of the decisions that may ultimately determine the scope of regulatory exposure are often taken outside the legal department. Product teams are the ones deciding how travel services are combined and presented. Marketing teams develop cross-selling strategies. Designers shape the booking journey and influence how customers perceive the product they are purchasing.
None of these decisions are driven by regulatory considerations. They are typically made to improve customer experience and generate additional revenue. But they can also affect how the travel product is classified from a legal perspective.
As a result, package travel liability is increasingly becoming a business and product-design issue, rather than a purely legal one.
The hidden compliance decisions made outside the legal department
A booking process that seamlessly encourages customers to add accommodation, transfers or activities to a flight booking can create a very different regulatory outcome from what the platform initially expected. What begins as a commercial optimisation exercise may ultimately affect liability, refund obligations, insolvency protection requirements and other consumer protection obligations.
COVID-19 and the push for stronger consumer protection
The latest reforms reflect a broader regulatory trend. The reforms suggest a policy preference for addressing regulatory gaps before they result in a widespread consumer harm. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted weaknesses in the existing framework and accelerated the push for stronger consumer protection.
Although much of the discussions around the reforms has focused on package definitions and online booking journeys, the reforms also strengthen refund, insolvency and consumer information requirements.
What travel platforms should review now
For businesses, the practical takeaway is relatively simple. Reviewing contractual arrangements alone is no longer sufficient. Equal attention should be given to the customer journey itself. How are travel services presented to consumers? How closely are different providers connected within the booking process? What impression does the customer have about what is being purchased?
These questions are becoming more and more important because regulators are paying attention to how digital business models operate in practice and less attention to how they are described on paper. The travel sector is one of the clearest examples of this shift.
Liability starts earlier than most businesses expect
For travel platforms, liability may arise much earlier than expected. In many cases, the most important compliance decisions are made long before a customer experiences any problem with the trip. They are made when the product team decides how services will be bundled, when a marketing team designs a cross-selling strategy or when a designer modifies the booking flow. Those decisions can influence how the arrangement is classified under travel law and whether the platform may be ultimately treated as an organiser with responsibility for the travel package. The regulatory consequences often emerge much later, but the foundations for that exposure are laid much earlier.
Businesses that involve legal and compliance teams only after a new booking journey has been launched may discover that the decisions have already been made.
