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

11 legislated a system of vouchers. Article 70 ALC, titled “Exceptional provisions on the termination of contracts between tourism enterprises and their customers regarding the provision of tourism services”, applies to contracts for the provision of tourism services, either booked individually or in the form of package travel, which have been concluded between tourist enterprises of 1(1) of Law No. 4276/2014 and customers and which have been terminated from the 25 February 2020 to the 30 September 2020 by either contracting party. Under this legal framework, the reimbursement of the price of the trip may be replaced by a credit note. The tourism enterprise shall inform the customer, in writing, regarding the offer of the credit note within thirty (30) days from the date of termination of the contract or, in the event the contract has been terminated before the commencement of the ALC, within thirty (30) days from its entry into force. In case the tourism enterprise does not inform the customer, in writing, regarding the offer of the credit note within the above-mentioned period, the tourism enterprise shall refund all payments made to the customer. The tourism enterprise shall offer the customer the possibility to use the credit note in order to benefit from the provision of the same or a similar tourism service to the one that was originally paid for. If a credit note is offered to the customer instead of a refund, its value must be equal to the amount paid by the customer when the booking was made. In other words, the value of the credit note shall not be less than the original price paid by the customer and shall include insolvency protection. If the total value of the tourism service chosen by the customer is less than the value of the credit note, the customer may choose to either receive a new voucher for the amount corresponding to the difference in value, with a duration to be agreed between the parties, or receive the difference in cash when the original credit note expires. If the total value of the tourism service chosen by the customer exceeds the value of the credit note, the difference is paid by the customer to the tourism enterprise. Travellers who have concluded a package travel contract and fall within the scope of the Presidential Decree No. 7/2018 “Harmonisation of legislation with Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel and linked travel arrangements (EE L 326/11.12.2015)” (Official Gazette Α´ 12/29.01.2018), can benefit from these provisions. Hence, travellers who have booked a package which can no longer be performed due to the measures taken for the prevention of the disperse of COVID-19 pandemic are given a credit note to book a new package or tourism service of the same value. This means that travellers will not lose any money under this