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

8 In the absence of specific provisions, the entrepreneurs must return the amount paid by the customer, but there are rarely advance payments, especially for restaurant owners, so that, if reservations are cancelled, the liquidity flows in their favour are blocked. In addition, if the consumer advances all or part of the fee to the hotel, but not staying in the room due to unforeseeable circumstances, the amount collected must be returned, even if a judicial action for such small amounts is unlikely. Indeed the overall amounts involved are small because the market stopped almost immediately. Restaurants suffered a similar fate, although, in Italy, booking usually does not involve payment of an advance fee and, therefore, forced shutdown seldom generates an obligation to return. The reasoning is similar for the relationship between these companies and the travel organiser who does not pay the restaurants in advance, with the apparent consequence that, in the face of the impossibility to provide the service, there is no consideration to pay and nothing to return. On the contrary, for more substantial amounts (which usually involve advance fees) in the relationships between organisers and hotels (which sometimes involve down payments), hotel owners cannot keep what they have been paid, actually risking judicial actions taken against them. Moreover, they cannot grant credits to be collected within a year as no such rules have been introduced. Presently, and without an apparent explanation, there are no support measures for the hotel and restaurant businesses, except for the general ones applied to all companies, and this means, in perspective, that we can foresee many businesses being forced to wind up. There is no reasonable justification for the different treatment of tourism businesses, to the detriment of the weakest, despite that the failure of shops and hotels has a serious impact on the market, on overall hospitality and on the employment side. Above all, it is not clear, regardless of the provisions’ legitimacy in contrast with the EU Directive, why the institution of the recognition of a credit to be exercised within a year has not been extended to hotels which, had they received a down payment, could have held it and returned it through credit. Travel organisers have an advantage, as the credits