Mark Pestronk
Q: At Travel Weekly's CruiseWorld event in mid-November as well as at other shows where you have given seminars lately for agency owners and managers, what have been the most common questions from your seminar participants, and what has been your answer? What has been the most common misconception held by questioners?
A: The most common questions: "Do I have to register my business under any of the state sellers-of-travel laws? If I don't register, what can happen to me?" The most common misconception: "I don't have to register if my business is not located in a state with a seller-of-travel registration requirement."
Let me take this opportunity to set forth my answers for agency owners and managers.
There are only five states with registration laws: California, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, and Washington. (You can ignore any mention of Nevada, Oregon, Ohio and Rhode Island, which repealed their registration laws.) The five states' laws protect consumers in those states. So you are subject to those laws when you make offers to consumers in those states, regardless of where (in the U.S.) your business is located.
The two states with the most aggressive enforcement policies are California and Florida, so I will focus on what "sellers of travel" are under those laws. In my next column, I will cover exemptions for established agencies, startups and independent contractors.
Here are the definitions of "seller of travel" in the California and Florida statutes. You may conclude that your business does not fall under the definition, in which case you can forget about having to register.
In California, a seller of travel is definted as "a person who sells ... arranges, or advertises that he or she can or may arrange, or has arranged, wholesale or retail, either of the following: 1) Air or sea transportation separately or in conjunction with other travel services; 2) land or water vessel transportation, other than sea carriage, separately or in conjunction with other travel services if the total charge to the passenger exceeds three hundred dollars ($300)."
"Sea transportation" means cruises. The definition means that if you sell only hotels, resorts, all-inclusives, home rentals and local tours without transportation, you don't have to register. You can refer all air and cruise requests to a registered seller.
In Florida, a seller of travel is defined as "any resident or nonresident ... business entity who offers for sale, directly or indirectly, at wholesale or retail, prearranged travel ... for individuals or groups, including, but not limited to, vacation or tour packages, or vacation certificates in exchange for a fee, commission or other valuable consideration."
The term "pre-arranged travel" is a redundancy that "includes, but is not limited to, car rentals, lodging, transfers, sightseeing tours and all other such services which are reasonably related to air, sea, rail, motor coach, or other medium of transportation, or accommodations for which a purchaser ... contracts or pays prior to or after departure."
So, the Florida sell-of-travel law covers sellers of accommodations such as hotels, resorts, all-inclusives and home rentals to travelers.