A good day for holiday-makers

5.42.41pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 7th Jun 2007

With the holiday-season fast approaching, Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson has welcomed today's move by the European Commission to better protect the interests of his constituents in the South West and Gibraltar by revising the 1994 Timeshare Directive.

Throughout his time as an MEP, Graham Watson has been in contact with constituents who have asked for assistance with timeshare problems. Most recently, he was contacted by a couple in South Somerset keen for him to put pressure on a timeshare company which was doing little to help them in the resale of their timeshare unit. In the absence of tighter timeshare regulation, Graham has previously taken up cases with the Office of Timeshares in Europe, an organisation set up to promote fair-trading within the time-share industry, and various timeshare companies directly.

Commenting from Brussels, Graham Watson said:

"It is significant that on the day EU Ministers rubber-stamped the cap on mobile roaming charges, the European Commission launches a major revision of the 13 year old Timeshare Directive. Clearly European consumers are getting a fair share of Brussels attention and deservedly so.

"The initiative, proposed by my Liberal colleague Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, marks a good day for holiday-makers. As with the roaming costs legislation, we will work for a speedy passage of this bill through the European Parliament."

New legislation to come in will cover areas of the time-share market previously unregulated, such as time shares for canal boats, caravans and cruise ships. It will also apply to timeshare contracts of less than three years and to the resale and exchange of timeshare products.

With over 1500 timeshare resorts in Europe, comprising a total of 85,000 individual timeshare units, the industry in Europe is hugely profitable, worth nearly £7 billion on an annual basis.