Tourism Law in Europe

II.1.2. Crisis of territoriality If we look at the scope of application of the regional tourism laws, we can see that all of them project their content to all the agents who either have their registered office in the Autonomous Community, or who carry out their activity in its territory. Naturally, it can be the case of companies based in another territory, whether national or foreign, and governed by the regulations of their registered office deciding to book a hotel stay for a user who is in a Community with different regulations. Traditionally, the principle of territoriality has presented few problems, to the extent that the location of economic and commercial activities has been a constant. On the contrary, electronic commerce makes communication between absent persons possible and creates the need for security variables when communicating: authenticity of sender and receiver, integrity of the message and non-repudiation of it 8 . All this leads to a crisis of the principle of territoriality when determining the applicable law. With the emergence of more advanced technical means and remote contracting, this principle has become absolutely sterile and a source of problems, rather than solutions. Electronic contractual relationships are outside the time and space factor: they do not know about schedules or physical locations. A user can enter into a contract with a reservation centre located anywhere in Spain or abroad. In that case, the territorial norms of the geophysical location from which they access the service cannot be determined, nor can they be assigned to the Autonomous Community where they have their civil neighbourhood. Considering this, if the technical means make it possible to cross physical borders, it will not be possible to anchor civil or commercial relations on legal borders. Hence, the harmonisation of legal regimes in tourism matters has become an urgent necessity, especially in what regards the administrative regulation of reservation centres, which clearly have an international vocation. Blanch, Valencia, 1999. ROCA ROCA, E. “Administración Pública y Turismo”, Documentación Administrativa nos. 259-260, 2001. TUDELA ARANDA, J. “Unas reflexiones dinámicas sobre la distribución de competencias entre el Estado y las Comunidades Autónomas” in MELGOSA ARCOS, J. (ed.), Derecho y Turismo , Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, 2004. 8 Vid . MARTÍNEZ NADAL, A. Comercio electrónico, firma digital y autoridades de certificación , Civitas, Madrid, 2001. Foreword by Guillermo Alcover Garau. By the same author Comentarios a la Ley 59/2003, de Firma Electrónica , Aranzadi, Cizur Menor, 2004.