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

15 location of the property, the number of rooms, the square metres, the type of property, etc. They may also offer a series of other added services, such as parking spaces, vehicles, boats, access to sports facilities whose expenses are already paid by the property owner, among others 33 . Obviously, the more services are provided, the more interested people there may be. In any case, what is relevant with this type of platform is that it is based on the creation of its own community, in which its members, subject to a certain quota, can publish their offers and demands, as well as reach an agreement on what they consider of greatest interest through the website itself, based, as always, on the trust and reputation of the social network itself and of the users 34 . None of the above-mentioned consumer hospitality platforms has its own assets, no price to pay, no predisposition of the consideration – beyond the possibility of exchanging the property or the possibility of staying on the guest’s sofa if the guest can host it in the future –, no predisposition of the contractual clauses, no control over the provision of the service and, therefore, in accordance with the above, these platforms have the status of information society service providers. The consequence of this condition is that they do not assume responsibility for the service concluded through them, and the exemption from responsibility contained in Article 14 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the internal market (EC) applies to them. III.2. The legal relationship arising from the transaction The potential legal relationship that could arise between the parties is of particular interest. It should be noted that this is a triangular relationship where both the applicant of the service and the offerer contact the platform, and it is this that allows the publications of some to be matched with the demands of others. Some of these relationships could be framed within the field of consumption; at least, those closer to 33 Ibidem, p. 2 . 34 GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I., “El turismo colaborativo: Las múltiples actividades puestas al servicio del turismo y la dificultad de su encaje jurídico único”, op. cit. , p. 43.