Setting up your online travel agency is an easy, fast and simple way to create your own business, especially if you do it with the help of White Label Travel. But as well as having to carry out a marketing plan, when launching into the world of digital commerce there are certain legal aspects, such as laws for online travel agencies, that apply.
Although electronic commerce moves in a virtual environment, it is not exempt from complying with all legal regulations that apply in the physical world. That is why there are some basic questions that you cannot ignore.
- Your online travel agency must respect the laws for online travel agencies, including commercial, tax, labour or sector legislation, in the same way as a high street travel agency.
- You will also have to be scrupulous when it comes to complying with the terms of intellectual property, the rights of consumers and users and people’s right to privacy.
To understand each of these requirements and be sure that you are not disobeying the law, we recommend you visit the following links:
Law 34/2002, of July 11, on Services of the Information Society and Electronic Commerce
PersonalOrganic Law 15/1999, of September 13, on the Protection of Personal Data
Laws for online travel agencies and business tips to apply when you set up your agency.
Identify yourself. In the same way that in physical commerce, we know who to address in case of having any query or problem with the purchased product, the Electronic Commerce law also obliges us to identify ourselves.
Therefore you should make clear on your website data such as:
- Your name (in the case of being a natural person) or company name (if you are a company)
- Your address or establishment from which the activity in question is carried out.
- A contact email address.
- Other information that allows direct and effective communication with your customers, such as a contact form or a telephone.
- Your registration data in the case of being a legally constituted company.
- Your tax identification number.
- Detailed information about the price of your products, such as if the price shown has taxes included.
- Administrative authorisations specific to the activity sector.
Make the purchase process clear. When selling a product or service it is necessary to make clear in the Legal Conditions of our online travel agency exactly how the purchase or contracting process is carried out.
It also makes clear the steps to follow to form a contract with the company as well as the languages that can be used to perform such contracting and the general conditions that apply.
Identify your advertising material. It is important that whenever an advertising action is carried out, it is explained that this what it is. This way we will avoid confusion with other types of content and prevent our customers from being victims of misleading advertising. But above all, we will comply with the law by warning on the screen that what our customers are seeing is advertising.
Protect your customers’ data. This is one of the most important points to consider because not ensuring the protection of sensitive information such as identifying data or bank accounts is punishable by law with fines ranging from € 600 to € 600,000. Therefore, if we are going to handle this type of data for a commercial purpose, it is necessary to communicate it to the Spanish Agency for Data Protection and register it in the General Registry of Data Protection.
Finally, it is also necessary to inform our customers that such information is being collected. And they always can withdraw their data from the archives of your online travel agency.
Information about the use of cookies: The law also requires us to inform our users that the website of our online travel agency uses cookies that will later help us to perform data analysis. Give them the option to delete or reject them by changing their browser’s configuration preferences.
This is as far as our introduction to the laws required for online travel agencies takes us. It is not as complicated as it seems. Finally, it is only about complying with some fairly logical premises. If you meet all of them, the only thing you will have to worry about is launching your travel agency on the path to success.
