Strenghtening of Protection of Unsolvent Touroperators Consumers in Poland vs. the Concept of Creation of the Tourist Guarantee Fund

Abstract

In the paper the analysis of the solutions existing in Poland regarding clients’ protection of insolvent tour-operators has been carried out. Furthermore, the need to create the touristic guarantee fund as a crucial element to strengthen the rights of clients using services of touristic operators has been presented. Polish system of protection of tourist services consumers is not significantly different to the modes adopted in other EU countries: it guarantees covering costs of return trips from tourist events and compensates prepaid payments corresponding to not realized part of the tourist event in case of a tour-operator’s insolvency. The only one, however significant, difference is the lack of a tour-operator’s insolvency compensation provided by a guarantee institution in a form of the touristic guarantee fund. The authors of this paper assumed that allocation of tasks dedicated to a touristic guarantee fund in the Insurance Guarantee Fund (IGF) could effectively strenghten financial security system and trust to the tourist market in Poland in general. IGF’s twenty-five years experience in dealing with insolvencies on insurance market may constitute an appropriate basis to create effective supplementary mechanism of the tourist services consumer protection. Moreover, it will allow Poland to complete implementation of the 90/314/EEC directive of 1990 concerning organized travels, vacation and trips as well as to meet EU requirements in this field. Activities in this scope are all the more justified as the European Union Council adopted a general agreement on new directive regarding tourist events and arranged tourist services in December 2014.