Travel and Tourism Legislation and Ethics: An Analysis of IAG

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Travel and Tourism Legislation and Ethics
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Task 1..............................................................................................................................................4
Task 2..............................................................................................................................................7
Task 3............................................................................................................................................10
Task 4............................................................................................................................................13
Bibliography.................................................................................................................................17
Appendices...................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
The study analyses the legislation and ethics in travel and tourism. The study includes four
sections which analyses the importance of legislation and regulatory framework in United
Kingdom. Ethics is essential for conforming the social norms and legislation is important
for the organisation to understand the limitations. The International Consolidate Airlines
Groups is chosen for the analysis.
The IAG is basically a Anglo Spanish Multinational airline holding company. The company
was established in January 2011. The airline has it’s headquarter at Harmondsworth,
London. It is considered the sixth largest airline company in the world. The company is also
listed on the London stock exchange. The entire company provides its serving in around 200
destinations (Iairgroup.com. 2019).
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Task 1
Explain the legal and regulatory framework of the travel and tourism sector with
reference to England and Wales
The law, which is made by the parliament is said to be the legislations. The delegated
legislation can be passed in a short version of the whole procedure, which is needed for the
statute. The statute is said to be the written version of a law for a governing authority of a
particular town, city or country. There is a small difference between the laws and the ethics.
The laws are derived from the ethics. The ethics should be legislated to maintain the norms.
Regulatory framework is a framework, which is essential for the preparation of financial
statement (Legislation.gov.uk. 2019). Laws fall under three legal systems in UK such
English, Scottish and Northern Irish System. The laws within English system can be divided
into two parts, the criminal law and the civil law. The criminal law is under public law
category and the civil law is under private category. The purpose of criminal law is to
determine the crime and penalise the criminal. The laws, which are applicable for the travel
and tourism sector of England and Wales, are discussed below.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)- The statutory body is responsible for the regulations in air
transportation in UK. The Air travel operator licensing also depends on the statutory body of
UK. The ATOL provides the protection to their customers. The travel operator organisation
needs to have the license from CAA before planning any holiday tour package. The failure of
the licensing gives customers the right of demanding the money back. The CAA holds the right
of investigating an airport if they find that the operator of the airport is discriminating between
passengers and using unfairly methods for bargaining and others (Authority, 2016).
Air Travel Operators’ Licensing (ATOL)- The Air travel operator Licensing is managed b
y the Civil aviation authority. The travel operator agencies of England and Wales depend on
this licensing before planning tour for customers. If the customers buy a tour package from
such companies who do not have the license, they may not be protected in tough situations.
The travel operator companies also need to have the insurance bond from the CAA.
The air transportation sector is regulated by a wide range of legislation including domestic
and international. There are some air transportation laws like Warsaw(1929), Hague(1955)
and others.
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Processes
Magistrate court- Magistrate is a judicial officer who judges the hearings of lower courts
and deals with preliminary cases. In England and Wales the magistrate volunteers minor
cases without any official legal training.
County court- The court is based on the jurisdiction of on or more counties. The county
court of England and Wales is named as Single civil court.
Identifying and selecting the strategies
The legal and regulatory frameworks are discussed above. The organisation should follow
the rules of civil aviation. IAG is a travel operator company so they need to have the ATOL
licensing before planning travel plans. The travel operator is responsible for the health and
safety of passengers so they need to instruct their subsidiary airline company to follow the
rules of air transportation. The violation of the laws Civil Aviation Authority can cease their
business. The organisation should be bonded in order to protect the prepayments of
customers so that the customers can be able to demand the compensation if the organisation
fails to honour the contractual obligations.
Discuss surface, sea and air transport law in relation to the carriage of passengers
within the legal and regulatory framework of United Kingdom
The surface, sea and air transportation laws are discussed here. The IAG is a Travel operator
company and it operates the air transportation. The transportation laws deals with the
transports.
The list of surface and sea transportation laws includes Local transport acts 2008, the
disability discrimination act 1995 and 2005.
Road act 1974- The act was published by the government of UK in 2008. The act regulates
the road transportation facilities and subsidiaries of passenger transport facilities. The act
makes the provisions related to any road transportation authority ( World Health
Organization, 2015).
passenger charters of UK rail/coach companies - The act gives the passengers the right to
file a case against the transportation of sea and surface.
Air transportation includes laws such as The Air Navigation Order 2005, The Aeroplane
Noise Regulations 1999.
The Air Navigation Order 2005- The law deals with the navigation of aircrafts.
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The Aeroplane Noise Regulations 1999- This act regulates and revokes the noise of
aircrafts.
The air transportation also include some compilation of acts, which are described below
Warsaw (1929) - The Warsaw is convention, which unites certain rules related to the
international air transport. The act was signed in 1929 in Warsaw. The convention regulates
the international transportation of people, luggage and goods (Recio, 2014).
Hague (1955) - The protocol was established in 1955 to amend the convention for the
unification of some specific rules. The Hague protocol intends to become a single entity
with the Warsaw convention (Diderich et al., 2015).
Strategies for the organisation
IAG holds Airline Company and provides the customers with a tour package so that the
company should understand the laws. The airline companies will be able to fly
internationally by following the laws of transportation. The organisation sells holiday
package so that they must comply with the laws.
(For Leaflet: Refer to Appendix 1)
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Task 2
Introduction
The section of the study analyses the importance of health, safety and security legislation.
The impacts of the laws on the travel and tourism sectors of UK are discussed in this
section. The analysis of legislation that relates to equality is provided below.
Evaluate the impacts of the principles of health, safety and security legislation on the
travel and tourism sector with reference to a UK tour operator and travel agency
The health and safety legislation is responsible for the health and safety for the people. The
law covers the health and safety, safe manual working method, suspension of work from
medical and safety issues, special health and safety hazards and others. The duty of care is
basically a legal commitment, which can be charged by an individual who is requiring
adherence. The duty of care is considered as the social contract of duty. The list of acts
includes Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Occupiers Liability Act 1984 and others.
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974- The act is a parliamentary act of Great Britain,
established in 1974. The law is responsible for governing the health and safety measures in
UK (Blumenthal and Collins, 2014). The implementations of these laws are not very much
costly or daunting. The law manages the preliminary measures of keeping the environment
healthy. The governmental appointed body named as Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
enforces the laws to be practiced.
Occupiers Liability Act 1984- The act is a parliamentary act, which was established in 1984.
The occupiers are responsible for taking care for the safety of premises in the ownership or
possession and the act ensures that this is not causing any kind of inconveniences to others,
which are unreasonable. The legislation regulates and places the duties on occupiers. The duties
of occupiers are owed to all visitors who are able to claim for statutory negligence and express
the permission lawfully.
Impact of the health and safety act on a travel operator company
The travel operator is responsible for taking care of the health and safety of their guests and
employees. The organisation will be liable for any unwanted situation and the accidents. IAG is
a reputed organisation and violation of these laws can affect their corporate images. Some
strategies are discussed below in order to guide the organisation. If the organisation breaches
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the laws they may have to face the civil and criminal actions, which includes potential
imprisonment up to 6 months and fines up to 20000 pound at the magistrate court and 2 years of
imprisonments at the crown courts.
Strategies for the travel operator
The organisation needs to follow the steps which will help them to achieve their business goals.
 The organisation should focus on making a clean and safe environment.
 They should supervise the cleaning process of the place.
 The escalators should function properly.
 The organisation should make the customers aware of the emergency situations.
 The occupier should also provide the duty of care to the trespasser.
IAG should also take care of their employees. The organisation will be able to serve theri
customers internationally by following such rules. It will also help the organisation to
protect itself from the customer switch and competition in the market.
Analyse legislation that relates to equality with reference to a UK tour operator and
travel agency.
The legislations consolidate the laws, which are discussed in the study. It regulates the
protection of the characteristics such as race disability, religious belief, age, gender
reassignment, marital status and pregnancy and others. The Equality law includes the human
rights act, employment rights act, disability discrimination act and others. According to the
law if anyone is found to treat people unfairly and discriminating by perception the
individual or the association will be penalised. There are four types of discrimination.
Direct Discrimination- When a person treats a person differently and worse than someone
else because of their personality and existence it is called direct discrimination.
Indirect Discrimination- indirect discrimination refers to the practice of rules, which is
applied to everyone in the same way but it can leave a worse effect on some people.
Harassment- This covers the range of offensive behaviour towards anyone.
Victimisation- The act of singling someone is known as victimisation.
The victim challenges the organisation or individual with the help of the equality law. There
are some EU directives discussed in the section.
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The EU directives are important Framework directives, which were phased into UK laws in
1992 and 1998. Some of the provision of this act includes the carry out of risk assessment in
writing of all work hazards, introduction of controls to decrease the risk, sharing of risk
hazards with other employees including the promises and safety policies. Employees are
also responsible for taking care of them (Boyes and Elliott, 2014).
Strategies for the organisation
IAG should keep an closer eye to their employees and ensure that no discrimination is
occurring in the organisation. The organisation should check the no guests are being victims
of such circumstances. They may arrange different activities and engage their employees in
those activities which will be helpful in establishing new connections. The organisation may
have guests from different demographics and they should value the cultural diversities. The
employees relation should also be maintained so that they can remove the toxic roots of
discrimination out of the organisation. Violation of such rules will leave an impact on the
business of the organisation, which will not be beneficial for the company.
Conclusion
The section of the study analyses the impact of the legislation on an organisation. The
section provides a brief understanding of the legislations and directives. The EU directives
described and the strategies are outlined in this section, which will help the organisation to
follow the rules and continue to business successfully. The organisation will also be able to
maintain the good relationship with the UK government.
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Task 3
Understand consumer protection legislation in relation to the travel and tourism sector
Contract law- A contract means an agreement, which is legally enforceable between two
parties or more (Poirier et al, 2015). In this contract, each party assumes one legal
obligation, which should be completed. The contract provides a product, which is
enforceable by the law. The Government introduces many law and regulations, which the
travel and tourism company must abide by. The contract laws have influence on the travel
and tourism companies as the companies make contracts with the customers to provide them
safe and secured service. The customers also make the promise to pay the amount of money
that is required to take them to the tours, to provide them accommodation, food and proper
service. There are significant numbers of the European Council Regulations, which are
applicable to the food business in the UK directly. They are also applicable in the area of the
tourism package, which include the food service too. When a tourist party is going for a tour
then they are highly concerned with the service being provided by the provider (Buhali et al,
2015).
The service includes the accommodation, the food and everything. Food is of high sensitive
genre. The EC Regulations place an obligation on the businesses to ensure that the food
safety is totally maintained and the risks regarding food is eliminated with the good name in
that place. The unhygienic areas are identified and then controlled in proper methods. The
hygienic activities are carried out in a scientific way. These regulations make it a point to
make offence for anyone to sell process or nurture any sale of food, which is harmful to the
health. An estimated 5 million people suffered from the food poisoning in the England and
Wales each year (foodmanufacture.co.uk, 2019). If someone is running a food, business that
means one has to be particularly concerned about the health of the customers. The
International Airlines Group is highly concerned with the food and the hygiene that it proves
to the customers during travelling. The City Council’s Food safety is highly responsible to
ensure the safety of the business comply with the food safety and the food standards laws.
The International Airlines Group work as a tour operator and they provide a package tour
service to the tourists. A package tour or a package holiday consists of the transportation,
accommodation, food and lodging everything to be provided by the tour operator (Yun et al,
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2016). This comes under the contract. Other services might include provision of rental car,
outings, and activities during the holidays. The contract signifies all these services to be
provided by the tour operator as per the legislation. Contract of a package travel means a
combination of minimum two types of tourism service, which is for the purpose of the
similar holiday package. The contract should be offered by any holiday retailer and must be
purchased from a single POS. The contract must be selected before the payment is made.
Most importantly, the whole tour must be sold under the tag “package”. A contract with
hindmost traders is concluded at least within 24 hours after the confirmation of the booking
of the tourism service. The contract must be a valid contract, which means the agreement
must be written which states all the details of the tour service and the payments. The IAG
follows the rules of the valid contract.
Consumer protection- The consumer protection act (1987) is an act, passed by the UK
government. The part 1 of the consumer protection act implemented the EC through
introduction of a regime of strict liability of the damages made from the defective products. The
part 2 helped to create Government powers in order to monitor the safety of the products and
the part 3 defines the criminal offence by providing a price indication, which may be
misleading. All these are aptly applicable for the airlines group (Boyd et al, 2016).
According to the Trade Description Act 1968, which is the Act of the Parliament of the UK,
prevents the retailers, the service providers from misguiding the consumers on what they are
spending the valuable money. The IAG is a service provider and it has to abide by the trade
description act 1968, as the false promise of the good service would land them to pay penalties.
A package holiday, by law is defined as having transport (flights, transfers), accommodation,
and another tourist provider, which makes up the significant part of package. The package
travel, package holiday and package tour regulations 1992 is an act that applies to anyone or
any company who organises packages for tour purpose whether they are or not for profit and
even to business or for the club purpose.
Uberrimae Fidei is a Latin word which means ‘of utmost good faith’. An uberrimae fidei
contract signifies a contract, which needs a good faith to satisfy the terms of the contract from
both the parties. The Airlines Group maintains the good faith while delivering service to the
customers. They maintain the safety, the food and accommodation hygiene, keep the outing
activities safe and maintain the words of the contract.
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Accommodation services- Hotel proprietors acts 1956 make the innkeeper liable to make good
to any guest brought to the hotel. The proprietor would held out offering of fooding and lodging
accommodation without any contract to any tourists who appears to be able to take help and
able to pay the required amount of sum. The food safety is of utmost importance. The airlines
must abide by the safety rules of the food department. The Food Act 1984 speaks of the sale of
the food in the Victoria. The local Government and the Department of the Health and Human
Service maintains the Act. The most important objective of this act is to keep assured that all the
food sold in Victoria is safe to consume. The IAG abides by this act to ensure the food they
provide is very much safe to eat.
(For Leaflet: Refer to Appendix 2)
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