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

4 forms of marketing and transaction of goods and services, to the extent that one of the most significant activities in this area is precisely the accommodation in houses for tourism or vacation purposes. This can be done through platforms such as Airbnb, Homeaway, or Windu, among others, but accommodation is also arranged through HomeExchange or Couchsurfing. All of these platforms have, as a basic purpose, the location of temporary accommodation by whoever needs it for leisure, business or vacation purposes, and to put them in contact with whoever can provide it, mediating in such transaction. This can be by monetary compensations or not, for profit or otherwise 6 . Such is the relevance that these activities have been gaining in the tourism sector that there are those who have coined the term collaborative tourism 7 to this particular subsector of the so-called collaborative economy. Furthermore, it can be seen that today there is no relevant tourist destination where accommodation, transport and experience collaborative economy as “the traditional way of sharing, exchanging, lending, renting and giving redefined through modern technology and communities”. In 2015, the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Improving the Single Market: More Opportunities for Citizens and Business , COM (2015) 550 final, p. 3, recognised it as “a complex ecosystem of on-demand services and temporary asset use based on an exchange through online platforms”. While the concept that has finally taken hold is that incorporated in the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions A European Agenda for the Collaborative Economy , COM (2016) 356 final, p. 3, goes on to define the collaborative economy as “business models that facilitate activities through collaborative platforms, creating an open market for the temporary use of goods or services often offered by individuals”. 6 In this line, the opinion of the European Committee of the Regions: The collaborative economy and online platforms: a shared vision for cities and regions , (2017/C 185/04), in its observations on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Online platforms and the digital single market: challenges and opportunities for Europe , COM(2016) 288 final, and on COM(2016) 356 final, op. cit. , it considers that the reference to the “not-for-profit” aspect of the collaborative economy in these documents is insufficient because, although the transactions of the so-called collaborative economy do not involve a change of ownership and may be carried out with or without a profit motive in mind, the changes and innovations promoted by this route are not limited to the effects arising from the interplay of supply and demand for services. Moreover, the profit motive is not exclusive to business activity, since it is legitimate for individuals to be able to increase their wealth by exploiting it. 7 Thus, PASCUAL, R., “Turismo colaborativo: ¿un modelo de negocio original?”, available in: https://www.visionesdelturismo.es/turismo-colaborativo/, points out that we talk about collaborative tourism or P2P tourism (peer-to-peer, “between individuals”) to refer to a new trend in the way of travelling, based mainly on sharing accommodation, means of transport or personal experiences with other users through platforms where the host publishes his offer and the tourist makes the reservation. This term has also been accepted without any major objections to the extent that some literature already uses the term. See , in this respect, AAVV, El régimen jurídico del turismo colaborativo , Humberto Gosálbez Pequeño (Dir.), Madrid, Wolters Kluwer, 2019, and our work in this work, “El turismo colaborativo: Las múltiples actividades puestas al servicio del turismo y la dificultad de su encaje jurídico único”, pp. 23-66.