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

1 Package Travel and Hotel Contracts: The Italian Intervention to Deal with the Impact of Coronavirus Sara d’Urso 1 Introduction; 1. The Legislative Context and General Principles of Law; 2. The Intervention of the Italian Government; 3. The Intervention of Italian Government in the Tourism Sector; 3.1. The voucher before and after amendments; 3.2. A further novelty in favour of tour operators; 3.3. The new paragraph 11 of Art. 88 bis ; 3.4. The conflict with European discipline; 4. Potential Improvements and Conclusions. Introduction The unfortunate period in which we are living, characterised by uncertainty and fear given the spread of the COVID-19, has had decisive impacts, both socially and economically, on contractual relationships. The necessary intervention by the government authorities of the various countries involved, and primarily Italy, with drastic emergency measures, has affected both the freedom of citizens and the freedom of enterprise, also having a strong impact on contractual relations both at national and international level. The tourism and transport sector was the first to pay the consequences of the epidemic, as it generated a chain reaction caused by fear, which led citizens to stop traveling, even before the governments first limited and then prohibited travel. 1. The Legislative Context and General Principles of Law Before going into detail on the emergency measures adopted in Italy, it is necessary to briefly resort to the general principles of law which are necessarily referred to in this context. 1 Università di Milano-Bicocca.