(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(1) Certain advertising, sales, and business practices of sellers of travel have worked financial hardship upon the people of this state.

(2) The travel business has a significant impact upon the economy and well-being of this state and its people.

(3) Problems have arisen that are peculiar to sellers of travel business.

(4) The public welfare requires regulation of sellers of travel in order to eliminate unfair advertising, sales, and business practices, to establish standards that will safeguard the people against financial hardship, to encourage competition, fair dealing, and prosperity in the travel business, and to provide certain and reliable funding for the seller of travel registration program and enforcement by the office of the Attorney General of this article.

(b) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this article that the Department of Justice, to the extent that resources are available, work together with representatives of the affected business community to develop sample forms that will, to the maximum extent possible, enable sellers of travel to comply with the requirement to provide to persons making payment the information required by paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 17550.13, in a manner that is simplified, efficient, and nonduplicative, and in a manner that recognizes the particular burdens and situations that may exist for small sellers of travel in their efforts to comply with the provisions of that section.

(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 517, Sec. 1. (AB 2106) Effective January 1, 2017.)