Tourism Law in Europe

5 boosting tourists’ confidence in online markets. Rapid technological development and the availability of new products and services in the tourism market have increased the number of economic transactions-related risks for tourists and necessitated the creation of a specialised legal framework to protect against services provided remotely and conducted by means of computers. The tourism market and trading in general are in need of a modern, special statute that will cater to tourists by setting a mandatory minimum protection threshold. Besides, inasmuch as Greek economy is largely dependent on tourism, its endorsement and protection warrants special legal attention. In conclusion, tourism law in Greece has yet to undergo an in-depth study and legal treatment, given that, until today, there is a marked absence of a Tourism Code that would codify the statutes of tourism legislation into a single text. Greece has yet to enact a Tourism Code, in spite of the existence of legal authorisation to codify the scattered legislative material into a single legal text in Law No. 2160/1993 7 . A substantial effort to gather all tourism-related legislation was made in 2017, when the Ministry of Tourism set up the online portal, the “Tourist Legislation Portal” 8 , which consists of seven (7) subject areas for tourism legislation 9 . This effort could serve as a starting point for the creation of a Greek Tourism Code, since there have been efforts to bring together key statutes, judicial decisions and opinions of the Legal Council of the State that cover the aforementioned subject areas and subsections. Unfortunately, however, it has become apparent that the portal’s content is not updated on a regular basis. III. Public Tourism Law Pubic tourism law can be defined as the set of those rules of law that, on the one hand, 7 Article 6 par. 6 of Law No. 2160/1993 is the most detailed and substantive effort to enforce the codification of tourism legislation in Greece. 8 The online portal “Tourist Legislation Portal” was completed and delivered in June 2017, and it is available at: http s://la w. m intour. g ov.g r/ p ortal/ index. 9 More specifically, these are: 1) Organisational structures of Greek tourism; 2) Tourism businesses with facilities; 3) Other tourism businesses; 4) Tourism education – professions in tourism; 5) Contractual relations; 6) Special forms of tourism; 7) Jurisprudence – Literature – Opinion. Subject area no. 5 concerns contractual relations and comprises the following five (5) subsections: 1) Tourism leases; 2) Contractual relations of the Ministry of Tourism; 3) Contractual relations between hotel-owners and customers; 4) Contractual relations of the GNTO; and 5) Package travel.