Cycling UK Forum

Is your CTC Local member Group planning a bank holiday weekend away, perhaps under canvas or at a YHA?

If you are the organiser it looks to me like you are unlikely to be covered by the Organisers Liability Cover for CTC Member Groups.

'Tours’ lasting more than one day and including transport and / or accommodation may constitute a ‘package’. Unless organised via a bonded travel operator such as CTC Cycling Holidays and Tours, such a ‘tour’ may be illegal and will not be covered.

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Edit: ? at end of title in view of comments made later in the thread.

'Tours’ lasting more than one day and including transport and / or accommodation may constitute a ‘package’. Unless organised via a bonded travel operator such as CTC Cycling Holidays and Tours, such a ‘tour’ may be illegal and will not be covered.

Illegal, really?

In the land of the free is there an " Unofficial Holiday Act 19XX".

I suspect it's down to The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

Incidentally I very much doubt that this is a new clause, I happened to be looking at the document for the first time ever a little earlier on. I also doubt that CTC's insurers have much choice in the matter.

I seriously doubt that Member Group 'Tour' Organisers are aware.

Yes, if you have arranged transport and accommodation for someone then technically, according to the govt, you are a package tour operator. All of the official CTC tours recognise this and are appropriately insured (you need to be bonded (or at least hold the money in a third party account) so that you can pay back money should your organisation collapse).

I think this was the regulations that fundamentally changed the Birthday rides. But I'm not sure how it affects rallies which don't seem to be ABTA covered, or maybe they are and I haven't noticed. When groups go away, I'd have though what was being offered was a multi day ride and any organisation beyond that was shared. That's how it works with our group, no insurance is required because no one is taking on any liability. I noticed the second may is highlighted but the first one " may constitute a ‘package’" is equally worth considering.

Si wrote:Yes, if you have arranged transport and accommodation for someone then technically, according to the govt, you are a package tour operator. All of the official CTC tours recognise this and are appropriately insured (you need to be bonded (or at least hold the money in a third party account) so that you can pay back money should your organisation collapse).

The regulations allow for some exemptions from this; one is quite relevant here. As a government guidance document from 2006 puts it:

Question 2: I am just putting together a holiday for members of my
social club. Am I caught?
Answer: The Regulations apply to selling and offering for sale. If the members of
the social group have agreed to share the cost of a package they have decided to
organise themselves, and they have merely appointed you to organise the details,
then you are unlikely to be selling or offering for sale the package - even though
a surplus may be retained by the organisation to be disposed of as the members
may decide. (See definition of a "package" in regulation 2(1).)

So no, your MG is probably exempt from the Package Travel Regulations provided the trip is being arranged purely as a club trip, being offered only to members and not being run with the intention of making money.

When I organised a weekend trip for the local MG a couple of years ago,we started by making sure that the committee formally asked me to organise it on behalf of the group; this was then recorded in the minutes of the meeting. Places were offered to members of the local group (though we widened it a bit to the neighbouring group as well); they were welcome to bring friends along so long as the friends were also CTC members. The charge to each member was calculated to break even, more or less (in fact we had a small surplus both times I ran this trip, which we handed back to the participants).

In this case I wasn't organising transport but I was providing pre-planned routes, which could be interpreted as what the Regulations call "other tourist services". The Regulations need to be considered when any two of three services are provided: transport, accommodation and "other tourist services".

CTC Tours is in a different position because it is advertising its tours more widely and any given tour has not been specifically requested by a club.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. We did check this with CTC HQ at the time though.