While the legal debate is continued, the National Business Travel Association last month switched its position and now supports federal legislation on airline passenger rights. Two airline CEOs speaking in August at NBTA's convention in San Diego disagreed with the need for such laws, which have been proposed by the ...

Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims, particularly from Iran, visit the city of Najaf, which hosts the tomb of Ali bin Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. Though religious tourism brings millions of dollars of revenue every year, local merchants have complained that Iranian companies have monopolised ...

Health ministers from the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US), Mexico and the World Health Organisation meet today in Brussels for a special ministerial meeting of the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) hosted by the European Commission. The meeting will focus on effective public health measures to ...

The European Union is upset about plans by the United States to implement new travel fees for visa-waiver tourists. The $10 fee is part of the Travel Promotion Act which would be put in place in order to help fund a world tourism project that would increase the number of ...

Again this year, IFTTA is organizing its “21st International annual Conference on Travel and Tourism Law” with the themes “”1.Accidents in travel and tourism sector: prevention, risk management and liability, 2.Recent national and international developments in travel and tourism law, and 3.Tourism and its impact on the environment". The conference ...

The hotel remarketer tax will require any reseller of a New York hotel room to remit a tax based on the full amount paid by the customer, including service fees and charges. A representative of the city's law department said a statement of audit procedure will provide more information about ...

The small Pacific island country of Samoa is due to change from driving on the right-hand side to the left on September 7, in the first switch since Nigeria, Ghana and Yemen shifted to the right in the 1970s and Sweden did so in 1967.Since the government announced the plan ...

Kenyan government is said to have agreed on the text of a new tourism law, which will, when passed and made operational, provide for the formation of new bodies as a new Tourism Authority, likely to be a licensing and inspection platform, and a Tourism Finance Corporation, likely a successor ...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York demanding that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) release details of its policy that allows the agency to search travelers' laptops at U.S. borders without suspicion of wrongdoing. ...

Protesters in the USA angered by the release of the Libyan Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie launched a "Boycott Scotland" campaign in the internet. The website BoycottScotland.com is an anonymous Internet protest calling upon Americans to avoid ...

Plaintiff had booked a package tour to Turkey together with his wife and their two children. Because of technical problems, the outward flight to Turkey was delayed for 26 hrs. Plaintiff claimed that because of a depressive psychosis he was suffering from, the fligth delay had caused a depressive mood ...

Bangladesh has formed a police unit to better protect local and foreign tourists and tourism spots. Another main task for this particular unit will be to look after the nature and wildlife in the tourist spots.Due to the country's National Tourism Authority (NTA), a total of 349,837 foreign tourists visited ...

In July 2003 plaintiffs had acquired timesharing rights (right to use an appartement one week per year) in defandants' hotel at CHF 10.000 and a yearly contribution of CHF 490. The contract term was scheduled until 20.01.2050 (!). In their law suit filed in 2008, plaintiffs sought for termination of ...

Defendant, a local community, had repaired a street in front of plaintiff's hotel. As the bitumen used was defective, particles came off and were brought into the hotel through the shoes of the guests and caused dirty spots on carpets and furniture.Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) held that such dirt particles ...

Plaintiff, a man of about 110 kilogramme took a dry toboggan ride with his daughter. Even though the toboggan run complied with technical standards and relevant laws, braking efficiency was poor at steep parts if total weight exceeded 120 kilogramme. When arriving at such steep part, plaintiff tried to slow ...

Dear IFTTA members,The 21st IFTTA Conference in Brazil is getting close. Toward that end the organizers would like to invite the IFTTA community to attend this annual meeting in Sounth America. About 22 experts from 10 countries are going to present papers, all of them with backgrounds in, or a ...

In an order relating to three wrongful death cases and 19 property-damage cases following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan denied a motion by the airlines to question six current and former FBI agents. The airline defendants had hoped to show at trial that the government's ...

Plaintiff had booked a flight from Frankfurt/Main (FRA) to Phoenix (PHX) via Washington, D.C. (DCA). The flight from FRA to DCA was scheduled for departure on Oct. 7, 2006, 13:25 hrs. Departure was delayed to 17:00 hrs and plaintiff missed his conneting flight to PHX. He claimed for compensation under ...

In a judgement rendered today (Case C-204/08, Rehder v. Air Baltic), ECJ held that neither the location of the head office of the company operating the flight nor the place where the air transport contract was entered into is conclusive with regard to the choice of the court having jurisdiction ...

To the dissatisfaction of the Treasury, Prime Minister Netanyahu cancelled the recommendation for the imposition of a 16.5 percent VAT on the purchase of foreign tourist services in Israel. The heads of the tourism industry said that the Prime Minister has made the correct decision at a time when the ...

ETOA, which represents inbound European tour operators warns UK government to go ahead with plans to increase Air Passenger Duty (APD) next November while the Netherlands and Belgian governments have this month abolished departure taxes in an effort to give a stimulus to tourism through their international airports. ETOA fears ...

Contrary to its previous position, on Monday the U.S.cruise ship industry supported proposed federal safety legislation, which would provide cruise ships with increased security.The bill aims to make reporting crime aboard ships mandatory and require ships to install security latches and peepholes in cabin doors. Along with security precautions, ship ...

In 2002, the Commission took the view that certain aid granted by Greece to Olympic Airways was incompatible with the common market for failing to comply with certain conditions initially laid down. The aid had to be recovered without delay. Faced with inertia from Greece, the Commission first made an ...

According to the June edition of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer international tourism declined by 8% between January and April compared to the same period last year. Destinations worldwide recorded a total of 247 million international tourist arrivals in those four months, down from 269 million in 2008. Given the ...

In France potential passengers –mostly from the Comores community - are refusing to fly again with Yemen flag carrier, denouncing the poor quality. They ask French authorities to ban the airline from French and even EU skies. It is an unprecedented move against an airline with serious potential consequences for ...

Today the European Commission adopted a "consumer enforcement package" to strengthen the EU-wide enforcement of consumer rules. The package consists of: a Communication setting out five priority areas for action, and a report on the first two years of application of the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Regulation1, which established an ...

U.S. Federal lawmakers want to know what will happen to sensitive data of more than 150,000 travelers after the country's leading airport secruity fast-lane company ceased operation last week. The House Homeland Security committee asked the TSA in a letter last Thursday to explain what it knows about the privacy ...

For 40 years, Utah required customers to become a member of a private club before they were allowed to set foot in a bar. Now this requirement was eliminated in an effort to boost the state's $7 billion-a-year tourism industry and make the state appear a little less quirky to ...

...31. In the explanatory memorandum to its original proposal for a regulation, the Commission noted, at point 20, that ‘[c]ancellation by an operator … represents a refusal to supply the service for which it has contracted, except in exceptional circumstances beyond its responsibility, such as political instability, severe weather conditions, ...

In Cases C-402/07 -Sturgeon and C-432/07 - Böck both related to the destinction of cancellation and (extra) long delay according to Reg. 261/2004, Advocate General Sharpston in her opinion delivered this morning pointed out that in the course of the legislative process, regardless the importance there does not appear to ...