President Iohannis passes law on sale of tourist services

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has passed the law on the sale of tourist services, which approved a government ordinance passed in August that modified a 1999 ordinance.

The Romanian Government passed an ordinance in August which provided that travel agencies operating in Romania and selling to individual consumers tourist packages or their components have the obligation to ensure the provision of tourist services or the reimbursement of all payments made by or on account of the tourists, insofar as the contracted services are not provided as a result of the fact that the travel agency is in financial difficulty, defined according to the law.

The executive also said that if the passenger transport package is included in the contract for the transport package, the travel agency should also provide guarantees for the outbound travel of tourists when travelling abroad.

Systems to guarantee the liability of travel agencies for the provision of tourist services to the consumer are bank guarantee letters, insurance policies or other legally established guarantee instruments that can operate in a distinct or associated manner. The guarantee is effective and covers the costs, including the estimated costs of repatriation. The insured amount and the way of organizing and functioning of the guarantee schemes are established by a joint order issued by the Ministry of Tourism and the Financial Supervisory Authority.

Via the ordinance adopted by the Government, the contravention measures applied in case of violation of the law by the travel agencies were also updated. Specifically, the fine was increased from 5 to 10 points, where one point represents the equivalent of a guaranteed gross salary in Romania.

At the same time, the normative act creates the legal framework to enable any travel agency to market packages of tourist services or their components to the final consumer, either as an organizer or as an intermediary of an organizing tourism agency.