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

6 its Article 88 “Refund of residence contracts and termination of purchase contracts for tickets for shows, museums and other places of culture”, which has recently been amended by the Parliament, who separated the discipline of residence contracts, merging them with the provisions that referred to the transport and tourism contracts in Art. 88 bis of the Law No. 27/2020, as well as the reimbursement of contracts for the purchase of tickets for shows, museums and other places of culture, still in Art. 88 of the same Law. Given the perpetration of the epidemic, with the Presidential Decree of 26 April, the effectiveness of the measures taken with the various Presidential Decrees is extended until 17 May. 3. The Intervention of Italian Government in the Tourism Sector Of all the sectors affected by the virus and the subsequent measures, tourism has been one of those that has suffered the most aggravating consequences – even before the Governments intervened, the citizens themselves, frightened by the epidemic, decided to stop travelling and cancel their holidays –; consequences that will impact society for a long time. As we have seen, with the intent to intervene, trying to protect the so-called weak category of travellers, but at the same time to balance the interest of operators saving them from bankruptcy, the Government has acted on several occasions, and we expect it to intervene further. Beyond the measures of an exclusively financial nature, aimed at supporting companies, in order that there are no defaults, the first intervention concerning the discipline of the necessary pathological phase that affects the contracts, put in place before the outbreak of the pandemic, is contained in the already mentioned Decree No. 9. In its Article 28 "travel reimbursement and tourist packages", the Decree dealt with air, rail, sea and land transport contracts (paragraph 1) and tourist package contracts (paragraph 5). Subsequently, on 18 March 2020, the Decree-Law No. 18 “Cura Italia”, of 17 March, was published. It contains “measures to strengthen the National Health Service and economic support for businesses, workers and families connected to the epidemiological emergency from COVID-19”, and also extends the reimbursement provisions, referred to in Decree Law No. 9, Article 28, , to residence contracts with some issues that will be discussed shortly. Both Article 28 and Article 88 of the two Decrees have been amended by the Law of Conversion No. 27/2020, recently published.