Court ruling throws doubt – again – over what constitutes a package holiday

Agents are being advised to take note of a Court of Appeal ruling against online travel agency Qwerty Travel.

The ruling once again throws into question what constitutes a package holiday, and what doesn’t.

The case concerns a customer who was hurt while on a holiday he had booked through Qwerty Travel, featured on Teletext Holidays.

Sean Titshall was on holiday in Corfu with his girlfriend and was injured after a glass patio door in his hotel room shattered.

Although the circumstances surrounding the injury were contested, Titshall claimed Qwerty Travel was liable because it had sold him a package.

An original hearing at Dartford County Court found in favour of Qwerty Travel that the holiday was sold as discreet component parts for an aggregate price.

But in the latest appeal hearing, Lord Justice Tomlinson overturned the ruling and declared that Qwerty Travel had, in fact, sold a package holiday.

In his judgement, he focused on the “service costs ” charged by Qwerty for putting the holiday together.

“Qwerty offered a package which inevitably had component parts – it would not otherwise have been a package – but where those parts were presented for sale as a whole for an inclusive price which comprehended the cost of putting them together as well as the cost of sourcing them,” he said.

“There is no principled basis upon which one can conclude that any particular proportion of the service costs should be attributed to the sale of the flights or to the sale of the accommodation, and thus whilst the sale of two services may have been identified, there is no way of ascertaining what is the total cost of either of them.”

Julia Lo Bue-Said, leisure director of consortium Advantage Travel Centres, said the case highlighted an important lesson for the trade.

"It's important that agents are explicit with their customers on what they are selling and they ensure their customers understand that they are, where relevant, only acting as an agent. They need to ensure the customer understands what this means in the event of any incidents whilst on their holiday," she said.

"If an agent is advertising an inclusive price then it's perceived that they are advertising a package and therefore need to comply with the Package Travel Regulations."

by Bev Fearis