On September 18, 2008 the French Minister for Tourism, Mr. Hervé Novelli made an important pressannouncement, concerning travel-agency licenses in France, and that it had now become apparent that they were NOT COMPATIBLE with the European Directive on Services in the Internal Market 2006/123/EC (better known as the Bolkestein Directive) which will come into effect in December 2009, and that by then, the French travel-agency licensing system would have to be ABOLISHED. The Minister intends to submit a proposal for an amended law to the French Assembly in November.
Obviously, the similarly restrictive and competition hampering Icelandic travel-agency licensing system is also incompatible with the Directive, and will have to be abolished. Valtours therefore reserves the right to operate, without a license, unhampered, until such time as the current Icelandic legislation on tourism has been abolished, and a new legislation, compatible with European Directives, has been introduced. However, no such move, on behalf of the Icelandic legislator, has still been detected.