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

23 services within the scope of business organisation and management” 46 . Therefore, it will be the platform, as a transport company, that will be civilly liable to the passengers 47 . Very different is the relationship that arises, as we have advanced, between the driver and passenger, when the trip is agreed through the platform BlaBlaCar, because their relationship, between equals, is limited to the private sphere of both subjects 48 . The platform, as a mere intermediary, only facilitates contact between those who make the trip and offers free seats with those who might be interested in making the trip, sharing the costs, without the platform having any ascendancy on who, in the end, provides the service. This is limited to hosting the data provided by drivers and passengers, thus allowing contact, so it will be applicable to the exemption from liability under Article 14 DCE and Article 16 of Law 34/2002 of 11 July, services of the information society and electronic commerce (LSSI). Concerning the C2C relationship between the parties, we believe that it could be defended in the context of private transport between relatives, in which there is no remuneration and, therefore, the activity would not be subject to any type of prior administrative authorisation, nor would the driver be required to fulfil any other condition other than the general conditions for driving a car, that is, having a valid category B license, as a minimum, as well as not having that license suspended for not having the appropriate points, and, obviously, having the compulsory insurance of the car in force. This private transport would be understood as the transport carried out by individuals to meet their personal or domestic transport needs, either by the owner of the vehicle (for the driver) or by their relatives (for those who wish to share the journey) 49 . Certainly, the problem of the best fit of the traveller who contacts a driver 46 OLEART ABOGADOS, “Las sentencias sobre Uber (A propósito de la STJUE de 10 de abril de 2018)”, Revista de Derecho vLex , no. 168, 2018, availabe in https://app.vlex.com/#vid/726243693. 47 In the same sense, see VELASCO SAN PEDRO, L. A., “El transporte colaborativo Hic et Nunc”, op. cit. , p. 413; OLMEDO PERALTA, E., “Liberalizar el transporte urbano de pasajeros para permitir la competencia más allá de Taxis y VTC: Una cuestión de Política de la competencia”, op. cit. , p. 266, the question arises as to what kind of carrier the platform will be, as its responsibility is closely linked to its status. 48 In the line already discussed, see MARTÍN MORAL, M. F., “Economía colaborativa y protección del consumidor”, Revista de Estudios Europeos , no. 70, 2017, p. 182, who states that “Consumer Law is limited to protecting the consumers as the weak party in their relations with the businessperson, leaving out those that occur between individuals, the latter being the object of Civil Law". 49 In particular, in its judgment of Commercial Court No. 2 of 2 February 2017, to which we have referred, the Court asked “[i] f a person takes another person on a whim outside a bar or because he is recommended by a friend to travel with him and pay the cost of the trip, is that included in the definition? ” . It solved the question by answering that “[i] t is apparently not included in the LOTT because of the vagueness of the text