Legal aspects of cruises from a Belgian perspective

The European Union promotes the cruise tourism, but with due regard for environmental protection. The cruise activity is seldom governed by a specific legal regime in the fields of safety, security, health and taxation, but may or may not qualify as a type of several other broader categories in public, labour and private law: passenger transport contract, tourism service contract, package travel contract, consumer contract, cabotage, regular service, fiscal transit, immigration, etc. Professional organisations in the cruise sector have elaborated some selfregulation.According to the type of cruise, the conveyance, accommodation or entertainment component may prevail. The nuanced criterion to distinguish a package travel contract from a transport contract is the substantial nature of the accommodation or entertainment components. The prevalence of the conveyance component shall qualify the operation as transport. For the purpose of carrier liability, the E.U. package travel regime is aligned with the international maritime passenger carrier liability regime. The compatibility of state aid to cruise terminals and cruise vessel building with E.U. competition law is an often raised issue. For the sake of marine environment protection, the compliance of cruise operations with waste disposal precepts are particularly critical.The characteristics of personnel employment in the cruise industry (seasonal, mobile, cross-border, irregular working time, etc.) are however not specific for that sector. Conflicts of laws issues are addressed by the E.U. Regulations: Brussels Ibis on jurisdiction and Rome I on choice of law