Charter or package travel: when your offer becomes a tourist package
A bare charter is one service, but a charter with a hotel night or a transfer may be package travel. See where the line runs and what follows from it.
You rent out a yacht and that is it: you are selling one service. But once you add a hotel night before boarding, an airport transfer or a corporate package with catering, your offer may stop being a plain charter and become package travel under the Polish act of 24 November 2017 on package travel and linked travel arrangements. That is a completely different regime: entry in the register, financial security and hard obligations towards the traveller. Here is where the line actually runs.
What the act calls a travel service
The act lists several types of travel services: carriage of passengers, accommodation for purposes other than residential, vehicle rental, and other services provided to travellers. Package travel is, in the shortest possible terms, a combination of at least two different types of such services for the purposes of the same trip or holiday.
The key phrase is "different types". A bare boat charter, even a week long one with nights spent on board, is a single service sold under a single contract. Only adding a service from another category, for example accommodation ashore or carriage, creates a combination that needs to be analysed.
Where the line runs in practice
| What you sell | How it usually looks | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| The boat charter alone | One service, one charter agreement | Standard rental and consumer law regime |
| Charter with a skipper | Main service with crew, still one subject of the contract | Check whether the skipper is sold as a separate travel service |
| Charter plus a hotel night | Two different types of service for the same trip | Real risk of qualifying as package travel |
| Charter plus a transfer or carriage | Rental plus carriage of passengers | Real risk of qualifying as package travel |
| Corporate package with catering and accommodation | Several services sold together for one price | Usually a package, needs analysis before you sell it |
The act also provides an exemption for arrangements lasting less than 24 hours, unless they include overnight accommodation. For operators this means a one-day outing without an overnight stay is treated differently from a week long cruise with a hotel at the start. How you sell matters too: a single offer at a single price is one thing, a customer buying the charter from you and booking accommodation elsewhere is another.
What changes when the offer is package travel
An organiser of package travel must obtain an entry in the register kept within the Central Register of Tour Operators and Entrepreneurs Facilitating the Purchase of Linked Travel Arrangements, and hold financial security against insolvency: a bank or insurance guarantee, an insurance contract for the benefit of travellers, or a travel escrow account for business conducted solely in Poland, plus contributions to the Tourist Guarantee Fund. On top of that come information duties towards the traveller, rules on price changes, and liability for delivering the whole package rather than just your own part of it.
This is not legal advice. The qualification depends on exactly how you build and sell the offer. Before you launch a package, confirm it with a lawyer or directly with the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, because operating as a tour organiser without an entry in the register is a real risk, not a formality.
How to sell extras without accidentally building a package
Most operators have no intention of becoming tour organisers. They just want to sell bed linen, cleaning, a dinghy and a transfer from the car park. Practical rules that keep this area tidy:
- Keep extras attached to the boat. Bed linen, cleaning, water sports gear or fuel are part of servicing the charter, not a separate trip. How to describe and price them is covered in the article on extra services in chartering.
- Treat accommodation and carriage as a red flag. These are the two elements that most often push an offer towards a package. If a customer asks about a night before the cruise, point them to a property instead of putting it on your invoice.
- Do not glue everything into one price. A single price for "cruise plus hotel plus transfer" is the classic picture of package travel. A split offer is also clearer for the customer, and quoting makes it easy to show variants.
- Watch out for corporate cruises. Team events usually drag catering, accommodation and transport along with them, so with corporate charters it pays to agree upfront who sells what.
- Write the scope into the contract and the terms. A precise subject of the contract protects both sides, as we describe in the guide to the charter agreement.
Documents and consents on the customer's side
Whatever the qualification of your offer, the customer must receive the full set of information before paying: the subject of the service, the price, payment and withdrawal terms and the terms and conditions. We break down the operator's duties towards consumers in the article on consumer rights in chartering. The more precisely you describe the scope of the service in the Quoting module, the less room there is for a dispute about what was actually sold.
FAQ: charter and package travel
Is a week long yacht charter with nights on board package travel?
The charter itself is a single service, and sleeping on board is a natural part of it rather than separate accommodation. The qualification changes only once you add a service of a different type, for example a night ashore or carriage.
Does selling an airport transfer create a package?
It may, because carriage of passengers is a separate type of travel service. Much depends on whether you sell it as part of your own offer and in your own name, or merely point the customer to an external carrier.
What is the risk of operating without an entry in the register?
Acting as a tour organiser without the required registration and financial security breaches the rules on tourism activity and carries sanctions as well as liability towards travellers. That is why you should confirm the scope of the offer before you publish it.
Does a skipper on board change the qualification of a charter?
Usually not, because they are part of the same rental service with crew. The risk grows only when the skipper, catering and a night ashore together form a package sold for one price.
Want every offer to state its scope unambiguously, with extras settled separately? Book a short meeting: we will show you how to build the offer, terms and consents in Portivo so there is no doubt about what exactly you are selling.
