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

a) the company needed to present annual gross revenue, in 2019, above 360,000.00 R$ up to 10 million R$; b) the loan would include the salary payment of all the employees of the company, however limited to the value of approximately 2,200.00 R$ for employee; c) interest on the loan is a maximum of 3.75% per year; d) the grace period to start the payment of six months; and e) thirty-six months to pay the loan. This rule was mandatorily directed towards the payment of wages by companies and has not yet comprehended a substantial volume of small entrepreneurs. At the moment, the Ministry of Tourism of Brazil has recently made another credit line available, this one directed to all tourism service providers, through Provisional Measure No. 963/2020 11 . This measure was directly promoted by the Ministry of Tourism on an existing line called “FUNGETUR - Fundo Geral do Turismo” (Tourism General Fund), with an investment of 5 billion R$, which is currently being regulated by financial institutions to be used by companies. 5. Measures for Relations between Consumers and Suppliers The Travel & Tourism sector would suffer from a major problem during the COVID- 19. How to deal with all the bookings and trips acquired by consumers, which were either unable to happen, due to closed airports, hotels, places and destinations? This, in addition to the passengers’ vulnerabilities, such as advanced age or other diseases they might have, thus being considered people of risk. Therefore, we were faced with countless cancellations of reservations and trips and that, necessarily, needed their own regulation, because only the application of the Brazilian consumer protection law, or even the special aviation legislation, would not be enough to resolve all questions. So, on 18 March 2020, Provisional Measure No. 925/2020 12 was published to regulate situations involving airline tickets, referring to Brazilian civil aviation. The norm, in its Article 3, stated that: 11 Source : https://www.congressonacional.leg.br/materias/medidas-provisorias/-/mpv/141866 . 12 Source : http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2020/Mpv/mpv925.htm .