Legal compliance in 2025: What you need to know | British Tourism & Travel Show 2025

well good afternoon just and welcome to the btts keynote theater I'm Stuart render a group travel tourism consultant at tourism and travel writer and facilitating these sessions today and tomorrow so here's a question for you when it comes to selling or supplying Group Travel are you confident you're complying with the latest legal requirements well joining us at btts today is someone who most certainly is and to outline key regulatory changes to ensure you're on the right route to compliance please welcome senior partner with travel or legal services Matt gatenby thank you Stuart thank you very much Stuart it's it's absolutely fantastic to be here um Stuart you're not supposed to be asking the question I'm a lawyer we ask the questions here um okay so one of the things that is often um talked about with regards to the travel and Leisure industry which we know is a is a very broad church is uh one of the things that said is it's it's one of the most regulated uh Industries around there there's so much regulation there's so much going on we talk a little bit about that now I'm not sure whether that's necessarily the case because I don't work in other Industries and I like to think that when you you know petrochemical and uh things like that they've probably got a l lot of Regulation going on as well what I can talk about is what is potentially going to be relevant to you uh as business travel uh travel businesses of any description in 2025 um as a lawyer I am expected to have Reams and reams of slides with lots of small text we're not going to do that today I've got three it's more talking points around it and if anyone's got any questions uh towards the end please do ask them I'd love to see if we can tackle them okay let's start with this on a day-to-day basis I will speak to travel businesses of all kinds of descriptions as I say inbound outbound UK Europe worldwide by coach by plane walking etc etc and one of the awkward questions I often ask is do you know your business model do you know what it is that you do and this leads people to shout at me because they spend all their time with their businesses and they say yes of course of course I know what my business is I course I know what it's doing but when we start to scratch below the surface it's not necessarily always the case what do I mean by that so again in very simple terms if you are a business offering travel services to the great public whether it's the UK or whether it's worldwide to a degree it doesn't really matter it's simple things like who is the contract with who does the traveling customer have their contract with is it you is it someone else you might be acting as an agent for another business you might be an introducer which I think is in from a legal point of view is still an agent or you might have that cont contract and that sounds very fundamental and I can say a few nodding heads say yes yes we've got all that M but you would be amazed the amount of time um that we have conversations where people don't know that and it's really really important because not only from a contractual point of view which sounds boring but it comes back to whether you have liability for the services whether people can sue you whether it's just for kind of quality of services or whether it's because they slipped in a hotel or on a dock side or something um that's relevant also relevant from a tax point point of view as well because not a tax expert but things like the tax regime are probably going to be different whether or not you are a uh a principal whether the contract is with you whether you are tour operator and you have things like Tom's vat or whether you are an agent so if you know plus or minus 15 20% to your bottom line is interesting then you need to know that and again I speak to a lot of people who are not quite sure good news is we can very easily set that right get people back on the right track without Too Much Ado but as I say in terms of kind of knowing where you stand for the next part that's a really crucial bit um slide talks about agent organizer versus Agent simple thing is is what I've just said typically if you are an organizer and I'll talk about the package travel regulations and the the the very legal definition of organizer in a second but you could boil it down to something even more simple is the customer's contract with you are they paying the money to you and you keep it are you sending them an invoice saying this is what we're going to do for you and we are the people that's going to provide it or are you saying look we are an agent we you are are uh entering into a contract with X and they will pay us a commission TBC etc etc that's important for all the reasons that I've said and what's also important in that whole chain of things is customer you you know there's going to be a chain isn't there it's customer maybe they have a contracts with you and you have suppliers you know many of the businesses in this Hall and otherwise or maybe you are an agent so the customer comes via you into contract with another people does everybody in that chain know what the deal is because again we speak to people and they say oh something bad has happened a customer has got a complaint or they're suing us um and we don't think it's anything to do with those because we were acting as agent so I say okay that's that's fine so who did the customer have the contract with and they say oh it was Matt TOS it's tour operator in leads or whatever uh and then we speak to Matt TOs and they say no nothing to do with us the contract was with you know this other business so again it's making sure everybody's on the same page that is a way to avoid all kinds of issues and it gives the customer Clarity again whether or not you are the business providing the services and you will have supplies Etc whether or not you are the agent the customers the consumers call them what you will they need clarity about who they're Contracting with what it is you know that that they are going to be provided with and it all needs to dovetail so far so good uh fundamentals so again what you need to think about from a regulatory point of view and these are the very fundamental fundamentals so I won't go into too much details but look I'm a lawyer I'm bound to say things like contracts are important it's what I do on a day-to-day basis but let me assure you honest gov when things do go wrong and I keep talking about when things go wrong don't I I don't want to be too negative but nevertheless when things go wrong and let's talk about recent events when the pandemic hit which was not generally good news for most people certainly in in this Hall in this arena there were all kinds of issues customers cancelling wanting to cancel false your arguments etc etc people would come to us and say help we're in this situation what do we do and the first thing we were going to say every time was well look what is the contract what is the contract between you and the customers it's probably going to be your booking conditions you know whether it's in the back of a brochure whether it's on the website whether it's on the back of an invoice it is the deal between you and the customers that just spells out all the things that you you just want to nail down from the start what you're going to do what they can expect from you what you can expect from them payment terms you know when you're going to take the deposit when the balance is due etc etc it is the deal between you and your customers it's really really important and the good news is actually if you can get that done get that in a good place it will serve you for years you don't necessarily need to be coming back to it every five minutes uh similarly in the situation I've just talked about you know you may have suppliers the hotels the trains the planes the coach operators the walking TOS provider you name it it's going to be individual to your business I'm a lawyer I'm going to say you should have an agreement with them same deal what is it that you want from them what is it they can expect from you who's going to be paying who when where how what happens if we get cancellations etc etc the truth is you can get along especially especially on the supplier side and we see this all the time no Matt you don't understand we've we've we've known these people for 20 years we've worked with them they get us we get them and I understand that and there's nothing wrong with that per se but again it tends to be at some point someone is going to say uh no actually you owe us we owe you etc etc that is the document you want to be pointing to it makes sense to nail it down and it's by agreement so you have agreed with them what's going to be in this written document all the terms they agree with you happy days don't come to lawyers you don't need to be paying lawyers fees if you have some kind of Fairly minor Fallout with either a customer or a supplier it's in those agreements that's why you have them agency agreements again same story slightly different if you are an agent or if you work with agents have an agreement between you that says what you will do for them what they will do for you important things like commission how much when where how it's paid are there overrides etc etc you're going to want this kind of stuff and again at the risk of talking myself out of a job which I seem to be very good at that's a that's a fundamental flaw um you can avoid having to deal with lawyers on all this side of things if you get that kind of stuff nailed down and there's no real reason why you couldn't have an agency agreement and then you top and tail that depending upon you know you work with your next partner business next partner business etc etc websites again you do not need a website to run a business but I think most have them even if it is just a kind of window into what you do and what's available um certainly if you are selling via websites and more and more people can transact you know a full booking I think most of the websites we see businesses we deal with have that half and a half where you know you you can click through to a certain point then it's ring a number nothing wrong with that but again the more you do with your website the more you have ongoing the more requirement there is going to be on you you just want to make sure you get these things right it's kind of okay it's not a huge issue you just want to make sure you are doing things the right way because again if it goes wrong there I am being negative again uh that is where you can kind of say look we got ahead of this we did all the things we needed to do we are compliant with things like next bullet point data and gdpr I see the looks on people's faces we love talking about data and gdpr actually I do love talking about data and gdpr because it's really important you you know we are in a privileged position as an industry in the sense that you get a lot of information about people you get their names you get their addresses you get their emails you even get to know when they are going to be away from home abroad uh you know in another part of the UK etc etc that is quite sensitive stuff and you don't want it falling into the wrong hands it will cause trouble and again the good news is you can get ahead of that you can make sure that you have everything you need from a kind of you know legal compliance point of view but it is very easy to go wrong there are plenty of high-profile some of the biggest fines that have ever been given for businesses and I don't I don't I really really don't want to do the scare tactics but you know some of the biggest finds that they've ever been on a data and gdpr front have been travel businesses all right it's ba it's Marriot but nevertheless it's because of what I've just said they actually have a lot of information about customers and you want to make sure that it is safe sadly uh you know you will have seen this in the in the legal press fraud of any description see travel and Leisure all these businesses as a potential Target because of the relationships you have with customers because of the information that you have because of the money that's transacting the way that it is paid because it can be easier than maybe other Industries to to intervene and get into that so these are the things that I think you should not be laying awake at night worried about but you will sleep easier if you know you've got these covered off because if you have got them covered off they're probably covered off for a number of years okay last last slide uh of note um just a couple of things look I can talk about this stuff all day even I think it's a touch boring but it is really important again dependent upon who you are and what you do um there are you know in the travel and Leisure World we have all the normal laws that apply to our everyday work and so I mentioned up there on the slide the uh consumer rights act this is kind of like one of the main underpinning laws that is applicable if you walk into a store and buy a CD uh or a fridge or a holiday package whatever you know you have rights that is kind of where you go to it says things like you know the goods and the services should be of reasonable quality and fit for purpose that's that's the law you know when we talk about your statutary rights are or are not affected that's largely what the consumer rights act is but that applies to every everywhere in the UK um similarly again not going to talk about it too much today the digital markets competition and consumers Act is new the uh the clue is in the wording there a lot of it is with regards to the digital space selling online selling electronically etc etc but it has some stuff to say but it applies to everybody and then we have our own laws that apply really just to us you know I mentioned the atol regulations relevant if you are uh selling flights and flight packages in particular you may be you may not be you may be buying those things that has a lot to say about when you do or don't need an at all and here we're into the you know sector specific stuff if you are selling flights or flight packages and you should have an at all and you don't it's a criminal offense let's not go there let's get ahead of it let's make sure that we've got everything we need probably the main one for um for us as an industry is the package travel regulations 2018 package travel regulations have been around a number of years now a number of of decades the the first set we had in the UK was in 1992 it does derive from European um laws uh a directive make no mistake the UK was in there at the start in 1990 saying we need this kind of law to protect uh holidays because it was seen as as something that was needed there is no desire I can see from a UK perspective even though we can make our own rules now even though we can deviate and I'm going to mention that very quickly in a second um it's to stay um and it has something for everyone yeah look again the clue is in the name it's mostly about package TS but again if you are an agent you are defined in there if you are a consumer a traveler you are defined in there it has all the things that you will need to know and you know what you will read laws this year or not which are more complicated than that it's not the worst thing in the world and look there are other things that come in from time to time uh Phil who was on stage a second ago just me and Phil had an interesting conversation about private high vehicle licensing didn't we so all these kind of things can come up but these are probably the main ones right so 2025 what does the future hold for the rest of this year and getting into to 2026 um you know St and I were just talking about uh etas and EES which is been in the news again recently I'm not really going to talk about that but but we can do in a minute but again it's kind of important because it's the way that you get to and from the UK the Visa or the not Visa that you might need and again we know that um the UK has its own version of that and you know for those of you who are not OFA but are OFA with things like the um the the Este the US version of this it feels like that's the world that we're in so that is probably going to start to kind of move along this year but it should have happened a couple of years ago we have consultations it feels like in more recent years there is an understanding that what we do as an industry and this is absolutely true what you do is complex you have a very complex product or service whatever you want to call it you are moving people from A to B via CD and e and f um often booked you know in many cases a year more than a year in advance there's a lot of money changing hand and the world is a crazy place things can change even if we're not talking about flood fire volcano terrorist attacks etc etc there's always something that's challenging um what we do and you know I speak to a lot of travel businesses and they say do you know what we could do with we could do it a year where nothing happens where we can just get along uh and and run business and you know I fervently hope that that is the case I just think the world that we live in there's always going to be something and I think as an industry we've shown that we are resilient and we can deal with that I just don't think you're going to get a year off any given time soon no matter what you do um but look there are consultations going on particularly on package travel and on atol as in do these laws still suit us um battle has always been a specific UK thing package travel you know now again following brexit it's ours to do what we want with um there is also European consultation going on on package travel rules and it looks to me like these two things are going to start to diverge our rules for package travel and the European rules for package travel are going to be different I have no idea whether that's a good thing or a bad thing or somewhere in between it's all going to depend um to me from my rather simplistic Common Sense point of view putting all politics aside it doesn't really make any sense for those things to be different might make sense if you can get an advantage but that's a two-way street what if the the European way of doing things makes it cheaper less red tape less regulated more attractive would a customer in this increasingly Small World start to book with a competitor you know a business like yours that looks the same but is based in France as opposed to a UK company I don't know uh the future we'll see so I think that's something um that we need to keep an eye on you will see more and more about that we will talk about it in the trade etc etc and here's the other thing for anyone who says oh I don't like this kind of Regulation this is my last point we don't like this kind of Regulation it's it's too much well my sad news to inform you that actually other parts of the world look at things like the pakist travel regulations and say hey we really like the look of that so you've got places like California so only one part of the us but they are putting together a rules game which is going to look by the time it's finished a lot like the package travel regulations and again you've got destinations or jurisdictions should I say like Australia that do it completely the different way if you're a business in Australia there is basically no regulation whatsoever or it's very very light touch and uh you know I speak to people and they say oh maybe we should do that in the UK well I think there is a little bit of a care for what you wish for I think most of the businesses um that I speak to are quite happy that we have this regulation I think they're just keen on it being a Level Playing Field and I have no issue with that so not a single person got up and left in what you know the the legal session so thank you very much um for the last 20 minutes also brilliant a thank you very much indeed Matt we have time for a few questions if you'd like to ask a question put up your hand we have a roving microphone um and wait for the microphone to come to you and if you're going to ask a question tell us who you are and who you represent and while you're thinking about the question let me just there's a lot there thank you very much indeed yeah sorry um comprehensive how do people keep on top of sort of the latest changes to regulations it's difficult it it's you know I I've very much acutely aware of what you really want to do as a travel business is to get on with the good stuff you probably didn't get into doing what you do to to have to deal with this kind of stuff but it but it is there um I think there's a few ways of doing it you have you know more now than ever there is that availability via things like the internet um things that you can sign up for uh I've got to do a plug for us you know again we have a mailing list travel.co we're going to be talking about a lot of things but again we're going to be especially looking at the bigger ticket things and putting something out there not just an update this is very much our thing but like you know what we think it means but again look that is going to mean something different to you if you are a uh UK based Coach T operator compared to an international you know flight travel business um but there are a lot of membership associations out there many of whom are represented in in these hallowed Halls who again do a very good job of it's it's part of their shtick making sure that members are aware of the key things that you might need to know um there's not a magic wonder I I think in the grand scheme of things things move you know talking about ETS and eses turns out things don't move as fast as we think sometimes so I think generally speaking there's always a long lead in time that's that's one of the saving Graces okay we have a question over there Jackie with the microphone anybody except Phil Mark thanks for a great great presentation there can you give us your name please Phil oh sorry yeah Phil Smith CPT I was going to do that after um do you do you see re protection not some this is regulation but protection as actually being something that is a valuable marketing tool I I asked this because we we offer to members the bonded coach holidays product in conjunction with abtot and you know the me we've probably got a hundred or so of our members that are in that and they actually use that um product that they they get through CPT membership as a as a positive marketing tool to offer Assurance to their uh prospective clients and I I just wondered how you saw the value in in something like that when offering offering tourism products uh it's a great thanks Phil that's a that's a great question I've got two slightly different angles to that one of which is I mean look I'm so entrenched in advising on this kind of stuff yeah of course I think it's important I tend to look at it from a point of view as you know when we talk about the package travel regulations for instance if you are a package organizer you don't have a choice you have to have that kind of protection uh and there are providers out there one of which is the is the bch scheme um and again it's a it's it's a criminal offense to not to do it so so you have to do it um there are also other requirements out there you know if you've watched TV at any time and seen an advert you will see things like at all protected as a as a statement as a logo etc etc that it is a requirement to have it it's crime so you have to have it some of the time for the people that don't have to have it and this is the second point to your point Phil seeing a a lot of businesses use it as a way you know opting into it so that they can say to customers you know you can have confidence you can book with us your money will be safe that appears to be a very um lucrative way of selling yourself because it it shows people that they can book with you in confidence um if you don't have to have the protection technically if the travel business goes bust the customer is going to the uh you know end of the line on the insolvency Queue the same with anybody else yes it's a complicated picture because there are other forms of protection out there and a lot of people say well why would I need to do this when I can pay by credit card and the protection is there on the credit card etc etc which is a fair point um but I think my my simplest answer to that is I see a lot of businesses doing it when they don't have to and so I think that answers the question which is they see the value in it so there must be there must be a good desire for it customers like it as well my money is protected yeah who says no to that thank you do we have another I've got a couple down here and Andy tell us who you are good afternoon um Andy day right Short Insurance um Matt fantastic presentation money's in the absolutely yeah top draw thank you um we talked about um regulation protection consumer protection Etc and how important important that is and how much of uh it is a potential marketing tool for the coach tool operators but on the other side um I think it's fair to say that we know that there has always been an issue with operators that are not doing it correctly when they should be um one of the things that I've come across um over a number of years is a complete lack of monitoring from the likes of uh you know um trade associations well I I was more thinking about um trading standards yeah um where we know for a fact we know for a fact that um issues potential issues concerns have been raised to trading standards um and it all seems to have fallen on deaf ears I think we have a situation where um we get you can go to you you could put a set of paperwork in front of two different um offices and you get two different responses um some offices are more proactive than others but I think i' certainly from a personal perspective would be interested to see what your take on current activity is um by the local trading standards offices to um frankly um Stamp Out the Cowboys yeah okay um it's a great question Andy thank you um back when I started in this uh industry uh which is a couple of years ago now you proba you're probably going back uh 20 25 years um there was probably too much you know there were Silly situations where trading standard units so again it's very localized so you would have Birmingham trading standards and of course they control the businesses located here leads I think actually it was kind of a West Yorks type one anyway you know they were going out and about they were going to uh High Street travel agents looking at the window cards and trying to catch them out and there was a lot of activity um great for me not great for businesses fast forward to now it's virtually unheard of there's just nothing to your point and um whilst again that's good for our clients in a way actually I think I share the view a lot of travel businesses out there which is again we just want a Level Playing Field I think if you're here uh at the btts and you know we we're preaching to the wrong crowd it's the badens that are not here that are more likely to be doing the kinds of unscrupulous things that need that attention but again to a degree and there's nothing wrong with this the industry is partly self-regulating because if you see another business all right it's going to be a competitor of yours doing something that you think is UN to there are lines of reporting but again to your point sadly it doesn't seem to come to much I will say this isn't due to a lack of Desire on trading standards as a whole or any individual unit but again they are a governmental offshoot they are a department their funding has been cut cut cut cut less people less resources less abilities to do it and again they cover everything very few trading standards unit have a travel specific section or person so again they're looking at how do they prioritize what they've got they're going after the dodgy double glazing salespeople etc etc rather than travel um I think we could afford to have more attention genuinely because I think it would help again to promote as an an industry and show that across the board we're doing the right thing but um I don't know maybe but again you know the way things are at the moment isn't it more likely government are going to be cutting rather than adding resources sadly okay thank you very much indeed uh time is upon us I'm afraid but uh thank you very much Matt fantastic presentation um please show your thanks in the usual way thank you and thanks to Ed and the crew um for setting me up and thanks to you Stuart and bttf have a great day and

2025-04-21 08:54

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