Tourism Law in Europe

1 Tourism in Sweden Jonas Thyberg 1 1. Introduction; 1.1. Sweden; 2. Legal Environment; 3. Institutional Organisation; 4. Accommodation; 4.1. Hotel; 4.2. Hostel; 4.3. House rental; 4.4. Camping; 4.5. Timeshare; 4.6. Sharing Economy – Airbnb; 5. Restaurants; 6. Transportation; 6.1. Railway; 6.2. Bus; 6.3. Air transport; 6.4. Boat; 6.5. Car rental; 6.6. Taxi; 7. Tour Operators and Travel Agents; 7.1. Tour operators; 7.2. Travel agents; 7.3 The travel guarantee scheme; 1. Introduction Tourism is a broad term that includes a wide variety of different businesses, each of which is regulated by its own laws, regulations and principles. Besides more general laws and regulations for conducting business in Sweden, there are a great deal of regulations, guidelines and so on, that the individual company must be aware of and adhere to. The hospitality industry is of great and growing importance for Sweden. The total tourist consumption has increased during the last twenty years. Especially the tourist export, i.e. the consumption by foreign tourists in Sweden has increased substantially. In this contribution I will make an overview of some of the issues of importance for the Swedish tourism. Currently, the Covid19 pandemic has a great impact on travel and tourism in Sweden, the same way as in all other countries. In this contribution I have decided to disregard the effects of the pandemic and describe Swedish tourism from a “normal” perspective. 1.1. Sweden Sweden is one of the largest countries in Europe, as it covers more than 450 000 km 2 . The country is elongated, spanning over more than 1 600 km from the north to the south. 1 Attorney at Law; Member of the Swedish Bar association; Konrad Advokater.