A hearing on the revised EU Package Travel Directive (PTD), which prevents independent travel agents from compiling customised travel arrangements with products sourced from different suppliers, takes place in Germany on January 23.

For more on the directive, see our previous story here. The directive will apply to all countries in the European Union.

The controversial directive has the potential to entrench the power of Germany’s dominant tour operators, reintroduce exclusive agreements that have been banned in the country since 1994, and force retailers to take on the liabilities of tour operators.

But eleventh-hour lobbying may yield some tempering of the imminent legislation. Commented Reinhart Mecklenburg, Director of AfroSales Tourism Marketing Services in Germany: “Despite the rather unco-ordinated pressure exercised on the German government as well as on EU representatives in Brussels, it seems to me that our disunited travel and hospitality trade will eventually be successful in removing and amending some of the most detrimental regulations.”

Once finalised, the terms of the new directive are expected to become national law in March, a development that could coincide with Germany’s influential travel trade fair, ITB. 

All EU member states are obliged to transpose the directive into law by January 1, 2018, for application from July 1 next year.