Tourism Law in Europe

Towards a Global Law of Tourism Felio José Bauzá Martorell 1 I. Approach; II. State Ordinances; II.1. Spain; II.1.1. Tourism, regional competition; II.1.2. Crisis of territoriality; II.2. Portugal; II.3. Other European Legal Systems; II.3.1. France; II.3.2. Italy; III. International Organisations; III.1. The World Tourism Organization; III.2. European Union; IV. Conclusions and Recommendations of Lege Ferenda ; Bibliography. I. Approach In the Spanish doctrine, Prof. Martín-Retortillo Baquer has noted how tourism is a cross- border matter, therefore being the object of territorial regulation in many European states 2 . Far from being merely doctrinal, this reflection completely highlights the functional deficit of a matter such as tourism, which is clearly international in scope, and which is nevertheless subject to regulation at administrative levels below the state level. It is anchored in a purely local influence, which feeds into the theory that territorial entities have to be able to regulate tourism in their spatial scope, within the context of their political legislative autonomy. On the contrary, the result is an asymmetry in the regulation of the same institutions, an extreme situation that leads to rampant legal insecurity. Indeed, the same tour operator, with a territorial presence in different regions of the same State, is subject to different legal requirements for the same activity. This problem becomes more pressing when we realise that information and communication technologies have in many cases eliminated the physical component of the legal and commercial relationships in tourism. This leads to communications between absent 1 Senior Lecturer of Administrative Law at the University of the Balearic Islands. 2 MARTÍN-RETORTILLO BAQUER, L. Foreword to Omar BOUAZZA ARIÑO’s book, Ordenación del territorio y turismo: un modelo de desarrollo sostenible del turismo desde la ordenación del territorio , Atelier, Barcelona, 2006; retrieved as Chapter 45, “Turismo y Territorio” form the compendium of forewords Del Derecho administrativo de nuestro tiempo , Civitas & Thomson Reuters, Madrid, 2010, p. 396.