Government Consultant for Travel and Tourism Law

            While I have done so much work with various governments and officials about tourism law, I have also worked on a daily basis with the tourism laws of California, of other states in the USA, the Federal Government, and many other countries in actual contentious situations, where millions of dollars are at stake based on the understanding and interpretation of the law. In fact, it is these types of real life conflicts, for which my employer’s office has now handled nearly 11,000 separate cases, where the problems of bad tourism laws are felt. It is this understanding of the steps that need to be taken to avoid future lawsuits and to protect all parties involved, that I work with on a daily basis through the methodology that Anolik Law Office has trademarked Preventive Legal Care®, as a means to limit litigation through good travel law and to limit liability of the industry by compliance with the laws of all applicable countries’ jurisdictions. The following is a brief summary of a few of the projects I have worked on, but my actual experience is broader. 

 

            In 2003, an organization requested that my office prepare a detailed analysis of the 50 Different USA State’s Seller of Travel Laws, and also those of Washington, DC, Canada, and Puerto Rico. This was an immense project requiring the work of a team of researchers, organized and directed by me, to locate analyze, organize, compare, and make recommendations for most of the travel laws found in North America. The work we produced over several months was more than 700 pages single spaced. This was original research, analysis, and drafting descriptions of North American travel laws, later greatly revised updated by myself and now on deposit with UNWTO.

 

           In 2008, I began drafting reports for The U.S. Congressional Travel & Tourism Caucus (CTTC) International Travel and Tourism Law subjects including an analysis of the UNWTO and UNESCO activities, international cultural patrimony and intellectual property law and cases, international child abduction, and other topics.  In 2007, I did work in conjunction with The Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC), which is a quasi-government body that acts as an intermediary and dispute settlement organization between the majority of USA travel agents and all of the airlines operating in the USA. My law office employer, Alexander Anolik, is general counsel to the Association of Retail Travel Agents (ARTA), the largest travel agent only organization, and its regular contentions with ARC have been handled by me, through the auspicious of my employer, to ensure ARC follows the requirements of the Department of Justice and the Airlines. I also attend ARTA’s Board Meetings and we discuss relevant aspects of the travel industry and government regulation as it affects USA travel agents.  

 

            About two or three time per month my office and I have contact with the California Attorney General’s Office to discuss the development and application of California’s Seller of Travel Law and how it impacts Anolik Law Office’s clients and the travel industry. Similar meetings are conducted with officials from other USA states. As international travel and the internet are making providers of travel and travel agents reach new locales, more frequently and through the different and innovative means, that the American free market has enabled, there are constantly new challenges and applications for the existing laws as well as room for improvements and clarifications. It is clear that through my office’s work and our regular interaction with the California Attorney General, the officials of other states and foreign governments, and through our work with the travel agency organizations and travel press that we have spurred the changes for the new law in 2007. One example of this is felt through the California Attorney General’s stance on online air ticket sales company, Orbitz, as seen through their office’s request in 2004 for me to provide them with legal analysis of the activities of probably the largest online seller of travel in history.

 

            Another similar project came to my desk from the California Travel and Tourism Commission regarding the government’s use of a website-television unification project. The Commission requested a legal analysis of applicable laws and recommendations to provide legal protection for their product that would enable viewers to watch programs on their televisions, and click and select links from television broadcasts to get more data via internet. It was for a new medium of television to sell travel, which as far as I know, has not yet hit the market.

 

            The International Forum of Travel and Tourism Advocates (IFTTA) is the oldest travel lawyer association in the world, and dedicated to developing and discussing problems and solutions to tourism law through its members who are the officials of the National Tourism Agencies (NTAs) of various governments, travel law professors, judges, consultants, and travel attorneys. We also partake in weekly discussions of their country’s travel law issues and what solutions are available to them. Because of my efforts in organizing and developing our travel and tourism law resources, in 2007, I was elected to serve as the Executive Vice President of IFTTA, and have been designated by IFTTA for developing and sharing our international and domestic tourism laws of so many countries with UNWTO. This is a multi-national project to harmonize travel and tourism laws for each of the member states of the UNWTO. 

 

          This research began with the development of the online database of travel industry terms, and organizations, for which I organized and created the original draft, followed by development from Alexander Anolik, and other IFTTA attorneys. Now the project is being adopted by the UNWTO as part of TOURISTERM, a standardizing and harmonizing travel law reference for each member state of the UNWTO to review when drafting its travel laws, judges to cite in their decisions, and travel attorneys and scholars to refer to for their cases. 

 

            In furtherance of the sharing, cooperation, and harmonization of travel laws, at the request of IFTTA for UNWTO and NTAs, I have been organizing an online virtual community where up to 5 legislators from each NTA member state of the UNWTO, IFTTA attorneys, and UNWTO officials will collect and exchange information. Concerning this project, which I initiated at the Malta IFTTA Conference, and have spearheaded the work on, the following press release was submitted:

 

            'Progress towards the creation of a virtual space for travel and tourism legislation and related materials took a step forward recently with the signing by exchange of letters of a Memo of Understanding between IFTTA, the International Forum of Travel and Tourism Advocates, and the World Tourism Organisation, based in Madrid. The MOU commits both sides to a phased cooperation leading to the creation of an on-line data base of global legal materials relevant to travel and tourism.

 

            'IFTTA has worked for a long time to promote greater awareness of the role of law in regulating business, consumer and environmental aspects of tourism. This initiative is a major step forward for us' said Marc McDonald, secretary to IFTTA and lecturer in the DIT in Cathal Brugha St, Dublin. 'With globalisation tourism stakeholders will increasingly need to access legal information about trends, initiatives, cases and latest developments across all continents and all countries. The emergence of the internet provides us with an accessible tool to help met this need. This development will not only help disseminate important legal information about travel and tourism. It will also add to the profile of the emerging area of tourism law' added Mc Donald. Further information about the MoU is available from the IFTTA website at www.iftta.org'

 

            In addition to these projects I have been corresponding and had meetings with the UNWTO officials on issues ranging from: African Tourism Development; Use of the Internet to bring Sustainable Development through Tourism; Tourism Ethics, and other topics and am seeking to do work in these areas.

 

            Since 2007, I have worked on World Heritage of Skyscape Observatories, Starlight Initiative, and Scientific Tourism projects.

 

            As one of two foreign members to the First International Chinese Travel Law Conference held in Beijing and Chengde in 2007, I presented a paper to the members of the China Travel Law Association on the topic of China Travel Law and Sustainable Development. In many ways, this conference resembled an IFTTA conference as those present and giving lectures were Travel Attorneys, Professors, Tourism Organization Attorneys, top government officials, and tourism legislators. 

 

            The topics covered included: Development of Tour Guides Salaries, Legal Relationships between the Travel Agent and the Tour Guide, Evidence Problems for Travel Lawsuits, Consumer Damage Claims, Travel Insurance, the Determination of how Tourism and Travel Law fit into the Chinese Legal System, Negligence Rules development for travel industry, and many others. Those present have been very active in developing China Travel Law resources and legislation. 

 

            As it turns out, the China Travel Law Association has numerous conferences every year has invited me to participate and continue developing solutions to problems we identified with the current legal system. It was because of our discussions, and planning for better China travel and tourism laws, that I was asked to serve as a Foreign Expert to Chinese Government officials, and two of them said they would nominate me for a continued position with the Chinese government. 

 

            When I am in Beijing, I work with top level Government Officials from the Civil Law Department, Legislative Affairs Commission, and Standing Committee of National People’s Congress for the People’s Republic of China to develop laws to protect Cultural Heritage of China for use as a tourist product.

 

           I have been asked to review and develop Chinese travel law by working with the Beijing Law Society, China Law Counsel Center, The Committee for Safeguarding the Legitimate Rights and Interests of Enterprises and Entrepreneurs of China Enterprise Confederation, and the Beijing Applied Law Science Research Center on topics ranging from World Heritage, consumer-travel agent-tour operator contracts, travel industry commission rules, internet travel purchases, and space travel law. Likewise, the Beijing Research Organization of Chinese Travel and Tourism Law has asked me to work as a foreign travel law expert commenting on the new Chinese travel law. All of these organizations seek my advice for ways that China can be an economic success through good tourism laws.

 

            In October 2007, I began working with Argentina and Brazil in its organization of South American government’s NTAs to harmonize the laws of that continent in order to increase tourism and sustainable development throughout the region, through the 1º Congreso Iberoamericano de Derecho del Turismo. I provide advice based on my experience working with the travel laws from the 51 USA jurisdictions, as well as that of Canada and other North American countries’ laws on tourism, as well as, efforts for harmonization of travel and tourism laws through IFTTA. 

 

            In 2007, I completed a travel law chapter for the book tentatively titled: Contemporary International Law And The Future Of African Post-Colonial States: Essays In Honour Of Professor Christian Nwachukwu Okeke. This publication was organized by distinguished judges, legislators, attorneys, and professors from Nigeria, and I was invited to contribute because of my knowledge of sustainable development laws and how they can impact Nigeria and its tourism laws.  Through Anolik Law Office, I have worked with Association for the Promotion of Tourism to Africa (APTA), Travel Professionals of Color (TPOC), and other Africa oriented organizations.

 

            In 2007, I worked with the Right to Tourism Council regarding transit states for a proposed study on the impact, sustainable development, and growth of Tunisian migration through examination of both Tunisians, and those using Tunisia as a transit hub state. As Tunisia is one of the primary transit countries for emigrant workers to exit Africa and enter the European Union, particularly France and Italy, this mass movement of people has greatly affected Tunisians abroad and in the homeland. The research includes analysis of Tunisians in their home country, those living abroad, and those that employ, work with, and otherwise interact with these immigrants. Our operational investigations include legal analysis, demographical, economical, sociological, gender perspectives and historical scrutiny, inquiries, data collections, statistical analysis, and interviews with migrants, employers, and others affected by Tunisia’s transit hub status. Tunisia’s large-scale movements of diverse African populations have impacted Tunisia’s bilateral and multilateral migration policies and treaties with the European Union, the Gulf States, and North America. But more importantly the status of Tunisia as a transit state has profound implications on protection of the fundamental human rights of the migrants both while they are in Tunisia and as they exit Africa seeking a better life abroad. As the world has become more globalized, the Tunisian case is now paradigmatic of the new migration scheme, and our Working Group’s research addresses both the positive and negative impacts of this migration in the hopes of preparing a sustainable model, that respects the human rights of all involved in international and transcontinental migration.  Finally, we are developing proposals that will seek to put transit states in general, and Tunisia in particular, in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. We are gathering case examples to illustrate that migration can be a tool for economic, social, and cultural development, as well as, poverty reduction and human rights protection. We are analyzing the impact migration has had on the economic, cultural, social and legal development through a joint “human development” and “human security” methodology. This approach focuses on the individual as a beneficiary of international law, as opposed to merely limiting the state to being the beneficiary of international law.

 

            In 2005, fresh from completing a course of international legal study sponsored by Paris X Nanterre in France, I moved to The Hague Academy of International Law and did work for a professor-legislator, who is part of a team of European lawyers and officials, drafting the EU Civil Code. My work involved reviewing essays on comparative law, to analyze points that would be applicable for the EU Civil Code, and make comments and corrections.  Through Anolik Law Office, I regularly work with the European Package Tour Directive as it applies to actual contentious disputes. 

 

            In 2002 through work for Pegasus Law Office and under the tutelage of my professor, a former United Nations Ambassador to the UN General Assembly, Japan and other prestigious positions, I prepared an analysis of the travel law of Thailand which upon request, I presented to the senator of Thailand, that was responsible for creating the new travel law of Thailand. Also while working for the Bangkok office, I also did extensive work for technology transfers and sustainable tourism development projects to develop business in accordance with the laws of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and British Virgin Islands.

 

            I assisted with a similar project also in 2007 concerning Japanese travel law with the leading travel attorney of Japan, whose articles are published weekly in the Japanese travel magazines which is read by tourism legislators in Japan.

 

            In 2004, I was selected by my University for representation at the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition. The topic was Space Travel Law, and presiding over the moot court and reviewing the written arguments, were distinguished scholars, judges, and law makers. My work was specifically cited during oral presentations, because of its focus being based on travel and tourism law, which is an area of law new to space law. This competition and my research was presented just prior to the same group of scholars and legislators drafting the first USA space travel and tourism law as The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act passed by Congress in 2004 . Later in 2005, the U.S. Government released a set of proposed rules for space tourism so that any company proposing to launch paying passengers from American soil on a suborbital rocket must receive a license from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST). The licensing process focuses on public safety and safety of property, and the details can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Chapter III.(For more information on this subject see my website, www.spacetravellaw.com and see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tourism#_note-FAAReg)  

 

            Much of this above described background in comparative travel laws led to the completion S.J.D. Doctorate in Sustainable Development and International Travel and Tourism Law. My doctorate used this knowledge and experience to show how developing countries can create sustainable income and jobs based on good travel laws.