When is a travel agent not an agent: Analysing ‘Titshall v Qwerty Travel’

Katherine Deal analyses Titshall v Qwerty Travel [2011] EWCA Civ 1569 in an article that looks at the implications for travel agents, who sell holidays on behalf of principals, but do not generally accept responsibility themselves for the proper performance of the services sold.

The Package Travel, Package Holiday and Package Tours Regulations 1992 () (the Regulations) came into force on 23 December 1992, revolutionising how injured holiday makers could claim compensation for death, injury or illness. Few personal injury practitioners will not have come across them at some point. Thanks to the Regulations, the provisions of which are now expressly or impliedly incorporated into every package holiday contract, where an English holiday maker has been injured while on a package, he can sue the other party to his holiday contract directly in the English courts under English law, for injuries arising from the negligent provision of services or accommodation which were part of the package. In effect, caught by a modified form of vicarious liability, the tour operator cannot escape liability merely on the basis that those services were provided by a foreign supplier. 

In Titshall v Qwerty Travel [2011] EWCA Civ 1569, [2011] All ER (D) 107 (Dec), the Court of Appeal….

 Continue reading this article here

This article was first published in the New Law Journal, 17 February 2012.