Going on holiday should be a time where you are able to forgot your worries and relax, however, given several travel companies over the last few years have become insolvent leaving many on their holidays stuck or with no hope of a refund, more consumer protection was needed.
As a member of the Civil Aviation Bill Committee, this was a problem I wanted to address.
I strongly believe that anything that can be done to take any anxiety or stress out of holiday is good news for travellers.
The Air Travel Organisers Licensing (ATOL) scheme, managed by the Civil Aviation Authority, is intended to provide peace of mind to holidaymakers who have bought a package holiday that includes a flight.
If the travel company they purchased the holiday with becomes insolvent, holiday makers would either get a full refund or if they were already on holiday, would be able to return home as planned at no extra cost.
However, given that the holiday market has changed considerably over the past few years, for example with greater use of the internet to buy holidays, it has become increasingly difficult to know which holidays are protected by the ATOL scheme.
This combined with the financial uncertainty of several travel companies, means this problem is bigger than ever.
To tackle this, a number of reforms have been introduced that will allow holiday makers to know if their holiday is covered by ATOL while at the same time improving protection in today’s holiday market.
From last week, package holidays that are sold by a travel agent or tour operator where the flight and other key elements such as accommodation are requested within two consecutive days of each other, will now be eligible for ATOL protection.
This is particularly welcome news for those flying out of Gatwick as many of these package holidays were previously not eligible, but thanks to these reforms they are now covered.
Over the next few years, as a result of these reforms, it is predicted up to six million more holidays a year will be fully protected.
This is great news both for holiday makers and our locally based travel companies.
It is also very important to make people more aware of whether their holiday is protected, and so from October this year, everyone purchasing an ATOL protected holiday will receive a standardised certificate confirming this.
I hope that in future, by not receiving this certificate, holiday makers will make their own protection arrangements to remove any risk of losing the cost of their holiday or getting stuck.
The Government, in conjunction with those of us on the Civil Aviation Bill Committee have not finished yet and will continue to examine the ATOL scheme to see if further reforms can bring about even more protection for holidaymakers in the future.