Tourism Law in Europe

18 In fact, hotelier's service also includes custody and conservation of customer assets. From this it follows that, although deposit in hotel is onerous, it is not possible to identify the quantum of the consideration. Price paid by the customer for custody is an integral part of price paid for the accommodation and inseparable from it. It would be absurd that a customer, in order to have a reduction on price, would ask to separate the cost of "deposit in the hotel" from the cost of accommodation, because he does not intend to use it. Hotelier is obliged to keep the goods of customer and to return them at his request, from this derives a particular regime of responsibility at his expense 60 . In 1978 formulation of the provisions of the Civil Code the previous distinction between things brought with them by customers and things delivered to hotelier has been preserved, equivalent to which are also those that the customer would have wanted to deliver, but which hotelier unreasonably refused to receive. For things, brought by the customer but not delivered, which also includes those that the hotelier, a member of his family or his auxiliary takes care of both in hotel and outside hotel for a previous period of time or following that in which the customer has had possession of the accommodation, and those that hotelier, his auxiliary, or a family member takes care of outside the hotel during the period of stay of customer at the hotel, legislator has provided for a discipline of limited or indirect liability corresponding to one hundred times the daily cost of room 61 . It is a responsibility that is independent of the negligent behaviour of hotelier: in order to free himself, he will have to prove, and therefore give positive proof, that deterioration, destruction or damage to the property has depended: 1. on customer, on people who 60 See, M.E. La Torre, Contratto di deposito in albergo (Deposit agreement at the hotel) , in V. Franceschelli & F. Morandi (ed.), Diritto del turismo (Tourism law) , Tourin, 2019, p. 333: “…in the deposit, custody, carried out with the greatest autonomy regarding the methods and means, constitutes the exclusive purpose of the contract”. 61 See D. Galli, La responsabilità dell’albergatore tra regole economiche e responsabilità ex recepito (The responsibility of the hotelier between economic rules and responsibility ex recepto) , in Danno e responsabilità, 4/1999 p. 402. Says correctly L. Mezzasoma, cit., p. 537: “Limited liability, which concerns things that the hotelier has not received on delivery, is a liability for custody without possession of the things by the hotelier. A liability of this type can be constructed by the legal system only by relating it to the need to ensure safety and protection for people who enter into a particular contract such as the hotel one”.