The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

4 Art. 41 of the Tourism Code, and without mentioning operational consequences, the rule is pleonastic, since tourism within Italy and leaving Italy is forbidden, thus making it impossible to actually enjoy package travels starting from Italy (see S. Verzoni, Gli effetti sui contratti in corso dell’emergenza sanitaria legata al COVID- 19, [The effects on contracts in progress of the health emergency linked to COVID- 19] in Giust .civ.com , 2020, according to which "the basic point from which we need to move is that these events basically can be described as force majeure, which, by definition, makes it impossible to charge either party with a contract breach"). Moreover, in less serious situations and without such diffusion, Italian courts had enunciated the principle according to which the impossibility of effective entertainment leads to contract termination resolution due to the unforeseeable circumstances, thus making using the tourist service impossible (see Court of Cassation 10 July 2018 No. 18047; Court of Cassation 24 July 2007 No. 16315). The Decree-Law No. 9 of 2020 has provisionally introduced a regulation modifying the patrimonial consequences foreseen by Art. 41 of the Tourism Code for the current state of emergency. In fact, for Art. 28, paragraph 5, if the tourist requires automatic termination due to the occurrence of unforeseeable circumstances, the organiser can offer them a replacement package of equivalent or higher quality, return them the amount paid (Art. 41 of the Tourism Code) or issue a so-called " voucher " for an amount equal to the amount paid, to be used within the year of its release. Of all these solutions, the least probable is the first, as it is very difficult for the traveller to have an interest in immediately embarking on a journey in a dramatic situation like the one we are experiencing, always assuming that such planning is possible, considering the described measures and similar ones taken by the other States. In fact, in the current circumstances, no one makes such agreements, not even for a distant future to come. The return of the amount paid can be implemented only theoretically since, if it were implemented on a large scale, this measure could put the organiser in difficulty from the point of view of liquidity, a widespread problem in Italy, and the organiser can choose the