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

destination foreign States where the landing, docking or arrival, due to the epidemiological emergency, is prevented or prohibited, and in any case when the execution of the contract is prevented (in whole or in part) by measures taken due to this emergency by national, international or foreign State authorities. In such circumstances, as an alternative to the cash refund provided for in Article 41, par. 5 and 6, of the Italian Tourism Code, the organiser may offer the traveller a substitute package, proceed with the refund or issue a voucher, also through the retailer, to be used within a year of its issue, for an amount equal to the refund due. In this case, the refund is paid and the voucher is issued as soon as the refunds or vouchers have been received from the individual service providers, and no later than sixty days from the expected date of commencement of the trip. Interestingly, the carrier and the hotelier will refund the amount paid in favour of the person from whom they received the payment or issue a voucher of the same amount to be used within one year from its issue. It is also worth noticing that these provisions apply if the package travel has been purchased or booked through a travel agency or a booking portal, also by derogation from the conditions agreed. Finally, it is important to emphasise that, with a general closing disposition, Article 88- bis , par. 11, Law No. 27/2020 provides that, even outside the cases considered, for all the contracts established with effect from 11 March 2020 to 30 September 2020, on the whole national territory – also for the services to be rendered abroad and for services in favour of foreign contractors –, when the services are not rendered due to the effects deriving from the COVID-19-related epidemiological state of emergency, the counter-performance already received may be returned through a voucher of the same amount, valid for one year from the date of issue. Nonetheless, according to Article 12 of the Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel and linked travel arrangements, in the event of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances, both the traveller and organiser may terminate the package travel, with the latter having to provide the traveller with a full refund when is prevented from performing the contract due to the same circumstances. In this context, the regulation introduced by the Italian law provides for remedies that are partially different from the rules established by European sources and introduces an exception to Article 41 of Italian Tourism Code, by which the Directive has been transposed. The organiser has the choice to offer a full refund of the price, within fourteen days of the notification sent by the traveller, or issue of a voucher of the same amount to be used within a year, or offer an alternative package travel. It is partially in contrast with the Directive granting to travellers the right to obtain “a full refund of any payments” in case of withdrawal from the package travel contract, in the event of unavoidable