Travel and Tourism: Contract Legislation and Consumer Protection

This report provides an overview of legislation and ethics in the travel and tourism sector, focusing on contract law and consumer protection. It explains the components of a contract, including offer, acceptance, and consideration, and how these apply to holiday contracts. The report also examines the Consumer Protection Act and the Trade Description Act, highlighting the rights of consumers and the responsibilities of travel companies. Furthermore, it covers terms common to contracts, such as price, destination, and services, as well as regulations like the Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The report also mentions the importance of capacity and certainty in contracts, emphasizing the need for clear terms and conditions to ensure legal validity. Finally, the report references several academic sources to support its analysis.

Legislation and Ethics in Travel and Tourism Sector
A contract may be explained as a legal connection
between two or more parties for the products or
services in exchange of consideration that is
imposed by law. The travel company has a
compulsory contract with the consumer describing
the details of imbursement and services. Every
travel contract contains specified terms & conditions
attached to it, such as place of destination, arrival,
departure, period and price of stay. Below are the
standard components applicable to any contract:
•Offer: It refers to a statement to tell that offer is set
to be approved by the offeree. Moreover, is made by
the offeror to the offeree, as there is an existence of
two parties and a condition to take the offer.
•Acceptance: Here the offeree is prepared to accept
the offer that has been made. Also, in a holiday
contract it will amount to buying the product after
having a complete interaction with the travel agent.
•Consideration: it has been discovered that, to make
a contract a valid one, a certain amount of thought is
needed to accomplish the acceptance. This is
because without a consideration any contract would
just be an agreement i.e. not mandatory by law.
Therefore, under a holiday contract the payments of
the holiday by the travel agent would be considered
as the consideration (Hall, Gossling and eds.,
2015).
•Capacity: It refers to the ability to move into a
lawful contract. The law describes capacity as to
own majority of age, and determined free of any
pressure. Under a holiday contract it is considered
essential feature, as it needs the traveller to state that
he/she is at least 18 years of age.
•Certainty: The instructions & terms of the contract
intend to be clear and well defined to both the
parties if not then the contract would not be legal.
Such as, misunderstanding regarding the staying
likings at a hotel.
A holiday contract has such conditions as follows:
•Agreement among the customer & the agent
•Information of the holiday under the catalogue,
commercial or website photos.
•Personal Likings of the customer
•Consumer rules
Terms common between the two parties such as,
1. Name/place of stay for the period of holiday
2. Destination
3. Express and implied terms
4. Amount of consideration
5. Other factors applicable to the destination
The consumer protection legislation purpose is
to protect the privileges and interests of the
customers from being dishonoured at the hands
of business companies and travel agents. The
Trade Description Act of 1968 forbids the
untrue or confusing indicator of costs of goods,
services, lodging and other connected services.
The Consumer Protection Act of 1987
demonstrates the privileges of the customers and
the responsibility of the providing party. Such as
manufacturer has an authorised duty to declare
the relevant details with respect to the goods as
stated by the health & safety rules of the country
(Hughes and Scheyvens, 2016). It creates
provision for the problems like, fraud, biased
business exercises and product obligation. The
above-mentioned laws have been combined into
one legislature called the Consumer Protection
from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPR).
The consumer protection under the Travel &
Tourism sector is in the following contexts:
•Legitimacy of prices and service custodies
•Surcharge valid to the payment made through
cards
•Charges of rooms made accessible
•Contains services at the time of leasing the
room
•Price release at the bars.
•Charges for the minibar
•Other material details such as way preferences,
swimming pools, gymnasiums and such other
things (Law, Buhalis and Cobanoglu, 2014).
The regulation helps in:
Contract legislation Consumer protection legislation
Hall, C. M., Gossling, S. and Scott, D. eds., 2015. The
Routledge handbook of tourism and sustainability.
Routledge.
Hughes, E. and Scheyvens, R., 2016. Corporate social
responsibility in tourism post-2015: A development
first approach. Tourism Geographies. 18(5). pp.469-
482.
Eliminating the
supply sub
standards
products
Establishing
product
accountability
Forming legal
authorities
Prohibiting
illegal price
indications