Sustainable Tourism Law

682 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW rights and obligations of tourism services providers, in order to enhance transparency and increase legal certainty for tourists and tourism service providers. It is important too to note as well the growing confidence of tourists, as consumers, in tourism service providers. Some of the main points in this text are: – To protect tourists as consumers, particularly in emergency situations by giving them primary and basic assistance and enhancing the cooperation between States and clarifying the information to be provided in these circumstances. – To ensure a fair balance between the responsibility of the States, the private sector and tourists. – To improve tourist confidence in tourism service providers and in the tourism sector as a whole. II. SCOPE OF UNWTO DRAFT CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF TOURISTS AND ON THE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF TOURISM SERVICE PROVIDERS According to article 1, the purpose of this Convention is to set out the policies and measures of States Parties to ensure and promote an appropriate degree of protection of tourists and to clarify the rights and obligations of tourism service providers. The scope of the Convention is wide: it includes all tourists, tourism service providers and tourism services. But now, the main question is: who is a “tourist” in the Convention? UNWTO Draft defines “tourist” as “a person taking a trip which includes an overnight stay to a main purpose (business, leisure or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited” 1 . And an “excursionist”: “ means a person taking a trip which does not include an overnight stay to a main destination outside his/her usual environment”. It is important to take into account that for the purpose of Annex I (Assistance in emergency situations) tourists include excursionists. Article 1 of the Annex defines the 1 It is important to take into account that the Standard 1.2 of the Annex II about Package travel establishes that: “A person travelling for purposes related to his/her trade, craft, business or profession (business traveller) is considered as a tourist, unless the package is purchased on the basis of a general agreement for the arrangement of business travel between a trader and another natural or legal person who is acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession”.