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

dramatisation and negativism in the media, which has a historical tendency to emphasise the negative and ephemeral. As Romain Papy has emphasised in his presentation for this conference 8 , the airline industry has always recovered fairly quickly from any crisis in the past. Why would it be any different now? Still, some things will change, at least temporarily. Many tourists will be more “health risk- aware”, and there may be travel restrictions and a reduced offering. Thus, people will still want to travel, but they may want to travel differently. A large portion of consumers will also suffer from a restricted budget, but again, the markets adapt to the changed buying power by making cheaper offerings. One could imagine that tourism will become more local. A specialised travel company in Brussels that operated as a location scout for customised high-end trips into the most exotic places on this planet, now may consider developing trips (still high-end), which allow the (re)discovery of the local patrimoine : from the jungle in Myanmar to the cathedrals of France. There will be pressure on all actors to adjust their offering. III.2. The Role of Competition Law and Policy III.2.1. State Aid In Europe, struggling companies can obtain aid under the current rescue and restructuring guidelines. By going beyond the existing possibilities, the Temporary Framework of the European Commission on COVID-19 State aid has made it clear that the Commission will swiftly approve State aid to support companies, especially to those sectors that are most affected by the virus. Note that support directly to consumers or general support to all companies is not subject to State aid control due to the lack of selectivity. Such State aid can take the form of direct cash, exemptions from taxes or social security, State loans, State guarantees or capital support. The Commission’s rules on recapitalisation have already been announced but not yet adopted at the time of writing. In practice, the focus of companies in the sector should not be what the Commission has said, but what support is made available by their national government. In practical terms, national 8 Romain Papy’s presentation “Beyond the EU State Aid Temporary Framework in the Aviation Sector” at the International Web Conference on The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry , ESHTE/INATEL/USAL, 20-24 April 2020.