Amendments to Travel Industry Act passed in Ontario

Amendments to the Ontario Travel Industry Act were passed yesterday (Dec. 13) as part of an omnibus consumer protection bill, which will see a number of new developments including the streamlining of registration categories and new registration requirements, plus the establishment of administrative penalties.

Bill 166, which passed its third reading yesterday at Queen’s Park, will amend the Act in the following ways:

• Enabling the creation of new rules for representations, such as advertising, by out of province travel sellers who target Ontarians.
• Creating a registration requirement for individual travel salespersons.
• Lessening the burden on travel agents and travel wholesalers by creating a registration class of travel seller so that the businesses would no longer need to register as both a travel agent and travel wholesaler.
• Improving compliance with the rules by providing new enforcement tools, such as administrative penalties and compliance orders, including a new appeal mechanism to the License Appeal Tribunal for these new enforcement measures.

"TICO commends the Ontario Government for this initiative and welcomes the opportunity to continue to work collaboratively on the proposed changes to the Regulation," said TICO President & CEO Richard Smart. "In the coming months, TICO will proactively communicate and seek out opportunities to engage all stakeholders to contribute and provide feedback on proposed regulatory changes towards modernizing the consumer protection legislation in Ontario."

The bill can be viewed here.

Check PAX tomorrow for a look at the next steps with TICO's Richard Smart.