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

“The term for the reimbursement of the value related to the purchase of airline tickets will be twelve months, observing the rules of the contracted service and material assistance maintained, under the terms of the current regulations. § 1 Consumers will be exempt from contractual penalties, by accepting credit for use within twelve months, counted from the date of the contracted flight. § 2 The provisions of this article apply to air transport contracts signed until 31 December 2020”. These would then be the rules for consumers and, consequently, for travel agencies, presented by airlines, when requests from their customers, consumers, for rebooking air travel, or even for cases of reimbursement of amounts. Obviously, this norm did not solve the context for travel agencies, as they are sometimes involved in numerous other services, which were offered and intermediated for customers, including accommodation reservations, transfers, sea cruises, car rentals, amusement park tickets, among many others, that were not included in MP No. 925. Therefore, once again the Ministry of Tourism, listening to the entire Brazilian tourism trade, interceded with the Federal Government and is published, on 8 April, the Provisional Measure No. 948/2020 13 , which aimed to regulate all cancellations of services, reservations and events related to tourism, due to the state of the pandemic generated by COVID-19. Accordingly, for the cancellation of services, reservations and tourism events, tourism service providers, among them travel agencies are not obliged to refund the amounts to consumers, as long as they ensure, the rule mentions: “I - the rescheduling of services, reservations and cancelled events; II - the provision of credit for use or discount in the purchase of other services, reservations and events, available from the respective companies; or III - another agreement to be formalized with the consumer.” (Art. 2). Still, as details about such conditions, the same article expressed: “§ 1.º The operations referred to in the caput will occur without additional cost, fee or fine to the consumer, provided that the request is made within ninety days, counted from the date of entry into force of this Provisional Measure. 13 Source : http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2020/Mpv/mpv948.htm .