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

1 Hotel Cancellations and Consumer Rights in the Time of Coronavirus Karmen Lutman  1. Introduction; 2. Epidemic and Intervention Measures in Slovenia; 3. Air Transport and Passengers Rights; 4. Hotel Booking: Non-Refundable Reservations and Consumers Rights. 1. Introduction Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the pandemic announcement later on, several tourists had to change their travel plans. In the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak, when tourism was still feasible, many tourists cancelled their journeys for preventive reasons. In the later stage, followed by the announcement of pandemic and the adoption of public restrictions on the free movement of persons, tourists had to cancel reservations of planned services, unless this had already been done by their contracting partners - such as travel agencies, transport companies, hotels etc. - or occurred ipso facto due to national restrictions on public transport. Being aware of the detrimental effects the present situation will have on tourism, this paper aims to focus on consumer protection during the coronavirus crisis. Although the tourism, hospitality and transport industry will face a crisis, a whole burden of coronavirus-related cancellations should not be put on consumers, who are in the present situation particularly vulnerable. This has already been emphasised by the European Commission in its Interpretative Guidelines on EU passenger rights regulations in the context of coronavirus of 18 March 2020, which call for adequate protection of passenger rights in the time of coronavirus. While some areas of tourism and travel law are regulated on the EU level, such as package travels, passenger rights, time-share and long-term holiday products, several issues remain a national competence. Among these are hotel contracts, unless they form an integral part of a package travel. Additionally, since the EU’s passenger rights regulations do not address situations where passengers cannot travel or want to cancel a trip on their own initiative, this  PhD, LL.M. (Berlin), Teaching and Research Assistant, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, karmen.lutman@pf.uni-lj.si .