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

10 in light of the extraordinary situation, the Commissioner encouraged travellers to consider accepting a voucher which allows them to postpone their holidays to a later point in time, under certain conditions or be monetarily reimbursed at the expiry of the voucher. Such voucher should be reimbursable if not used and secured against possible insolvency of the tour operator or travel agent. III.2. Current Greek Legal Framework Regarding Travellers’ Rights in Case of Termination of the Package Travel Contract The Governments of many EU Member States have already confirmed vouchers will suffice in place of cash refunds despite the PTD provisions that require consumers to be refunded within fourteen (14) days. Greece has followed the example of Italy 18 , Spain 19 and France 20 , which 18 Based on Article 28(3) through (7) of the Italian Decree-LawNo. 9 of 02/03/2020 (“Decreto-Legge 2 marzo 2020, n. 9 - Misure urgenti di sostegno per famiglie, lavoratori e imprese connesse all'emergenza epidemiologica da COVID-19”) (GU Serie Generale No. 53 del 02-03-2020), the Italian government relieves Italian tour operators and travel agents from of their obligation to reimburse travellers and authorise them to deliver vouchers instead, for a future trip. The duration of the voucher is twelve (12) months starting from the date of its issue. The above- mentioned Italian Decree-Law provides in Article 28 (8) that the voucher's system is an overriding mandatory provision based on Article 9 of the Regulation (EC) No. 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) in order to safeguard Italy’s financial stability. In this respect, it seems that travellers are not allowed to refuse the vouchers offered from tour operators/travel agents or from travel service providers. Available at: https://www.assolombarda.it/servizi/lavoro-e-previdenza/documenti/decreto-legge-n-9-del-2-marzo-2020 (accessed on 20/04/2020). The emergency official legislation about Coronavirus is available at: https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/dettaglioArea/12 ( accessed on 20/04/2020). 19 According to Article 36(4) of the Spanish Royal Decree-Law No. 11/2020, of 31 March, adopting urgent complementary measures in the social and economic field to deal with COVID-19 (“Real Decreto-Ley 11/2020, de 31 de marzo, por el que se adoptan medidas urgentes complementarias en el ámbito social y económico para hacer frente al COVID-19”) (BOE No. 91, 1 April, 2020 - BOE-A-2020-4208), “in the case of package travel contracts which have been cancelled due to COVID-19, the organiser or, where appropriate, the retailer, will be able to provide the traveller a voucher to be used within one year from the end of the validity of the alarm status and its extensions, for an amount equal to the corresponding refund”. Available at: https://www.afial.net/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/RD-11_2020-31-MARZO.pdf ( accessed on 20/04/2020). 20 Αccording to Article 1(II) of the French Οrdonnance n° 2020-315 of March 25, 2020 on the financial conditions for the cancellation of certain tourist, travel and accommodation contracts in the event of exceptional and unavoidable circumstances or force majeure (“Ordonnance n° 2020-315 du 25 mars 2020 relative aux conditions financières de résolution de certains contrats de voyages touristiques et de séjours en cas de circonstances exceptionnelles et inévitables ou de force majeure”) (prise en application de la loi n°2020-290 du 23 mars 2020 d’urgence pour faire face à l’épidémie de covid-19) (JORF n° 0074 du 26 mars 2020, texte n° 35), “notwithstanding the provisions of the last sentence of II of Article L. 211-14 of the Tourism Code and the first sentence of III of the same article, when a contract mentioned in 1° of I of this article makes the subject to a resolution, the organiser or the retailer may offer, instead of reimbursement of all the payments made, a credit which the customer may use under the conditions provided for in the provisions of III to VI of this article”. Available at: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000041755833 ( accessed on 20/04/2020). An overview of the main points of the French Ordonnance is available at: https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/ordonnance-ce-quil-faut-retenir-selon-lavocate-e-llop (accessed on 20/04/2020).