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

17 This consideration of the owner or operator of the tourist or holiday homes as an entrepreneur attributes the condition of user and consumer to the other party to the contract, since such condition is obtained when the natural person (who will enjoy the accommodation, in our case) demands a good or service for his personal use, as the final recipient of the same, without integrating it into any professional or business activity  Art. 3 of the revised text of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws (TRLGDCU)  . This implies, in any case, the application to the legal relationship that is substantiated, be it regulated by the Civil Code, based on the principle of freedom of agreement contained in Article 1255 of the aforementioned legal body, be it by Law 29/1994, of 24 November, of Urban Rentals (LAU) or as accommodation, with its limitations, in the case that this is considered to be the contract that underlies the sectorial regulation, the attribution of the consumer protection rules. Therefore, the relevance of this distinction lies in the legal regime that applies to the contractual relationship, since, although there will be no distinction in the rules to which the parties to the contract are subject, both in the case of a lease contract (LAU) and a lodging contract (CC), the guiding rules will be overridden when the lease or lodging relationship is concluded between pairs 38 . This is the situation where we find ourselves, with deals made through hospitality consumption platforms. These are pacts between equals based on the principle of free autonomy of the will of the parties, legally recognised by Article 1255 CC, about which, from the outset, we have no objection as long as both parties know that they are in the sphere of C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer) relations, and, as experience seems to show, they assume the conditions and limits of such agreements. In these pacts between equals, none of the measures that our law configures as consumer protection can be applied to tourists, since they are based on an imbalance between the parties, which is not present here, as well as the predisposition of the pact on the part of the offered 39 . 38 See , GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I. & FONTICIELLA HERNÁNDEZ, B., “La doble condición del turista que utiliza las viviendas vacacionales en Canarias”, Diario La Ley , no. 9261, 18 September 2018, electronic ed.; and GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I. & RODRÍGUEZ GONZÁLEZ, Mª. P., “El futuro de las viviendas vacacionales en Canarias y la necesaria modificación de su actual regulación jurídica”, in La regulación del alojamiento colaborativo. Viviendas de uso turístico y alquiler de corta estancia en el Derecho Español, Ana María de la Encarnación (dir.), Aranzadi, Cizur Menor, 2018, pp. 407-426. 39 GONZÁLEZ CABRERA, I., “El turismo colaborativo: Las múltiples actividades puestas al servicio del turismo y la dificultad de su encaje jurídico único”, op. cit. , pp. 58 et seq .