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

1 Collaborative Tourism Activities as a Response to the Crisis Generated in the Tourism Sector by the COVID-19 1 Inmaculada González Cabrera 2 I. Introduction; II. Collaborative Tourism Activities as a Preliminary Issue; II.1. Transport and accommodation as basic elements of tourism; II.2. The qualification of “collaborative”; III. Accommodation Activities; III.1. Legal nature; III.1.1. Business accommodation platforms (Airbnb, Homeaway, etc.); III.1.2. Hospitality consumption platforms (Couchsurfing, HomeExchange, etc.); III.2. The legal relationship arising from the transaction; IV. Transport Activities; IV.1. Uber as a transport company; IV.2. BlaBlaCar as an intermediary of the information society service; IV.3. The different legal relationship generated between users on these platforms; V. Other Complementary Tourism Services; VI. Final Remarks; VII. Bibliography; VIII. Other Resources. I. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to make a brief analysis of the different activities that today are framed in the field of the collaborative economy for the development of the tourism sector, fundamentally, tourist homes or holiday homes. These are considered as a resource that can contribute to setting up a sector that has come to a standstill with the closure of borders and with the immobilisation of a large part of the European population 1 This work has been carried out within the framework of the Research Projects granted by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, DER2017-85616-R, under the title: Desmontando la economía colaborativa: Hacia una nueva forma de comercialización de productos y servicios , which I direct; and the one granted by the University of Cordoba within the framework of los Proyectos I+D+i in the Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucía, file number 1263550, El régimen jurídico del turismo colaborativo en Andalucía. A propósito de la (des)regulación española, portuguesa y latinoamericana, whose PIs are Professors Humberto Gosálbez Pequeño and Manuel Rebollo Ruig. 2 Associate Professor of Commercial Law; Research Professor at the Tourism, Land Planning and Environment Research Group (TOTMA), which is part of the ECOAQUA University Institute of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. This double affiliation is indicated in compliance with Annex IV, G of the Academic Planning Regulations of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Contact: inmaculada.gonzalezcabrera@ulpgc.es.