Derecho del Turismo en las Américas

On Tourism Law Vincenzo Franceschelli 1 1. One cannot talk about Tourism Law until after the rise of “mass tourism” after the Second World War. It is in this season that what will become tourism law starts collecting the faint traces of the past, recreates them and develops them. After all, when a social and economic event expands and strengthens, the law begins to perform its regulatory function, which is aimed at directing behaviours and resolving conflicts following general principles. At that moment, tourism and law met and merged, proceeding together, one influencing the other. Of course, tourism as such has always existed. Nonetheless, it only became a mass phenomenon after the 50s. In 1950, the World Tourism Organization’s statistics reported 25 million international travellers. Twenty years later, in 1970, they will become 166 million. Hence, these twenty years were decisive for both the modification of the guise of tourism and the birth of Tourism Law. Naturally, tourism – understood as a journey connected to hedonistic elements, such as the pleasure of travelling or of staying after travelling, overcoming the mere need to move from one place to another – has an ancient history, but the same cannot be said about Tourism Law. Through the millennia, Tourism has unravelled on two structural components: travel and hospitality; these two elements have remained decisive in its history and especially in the formation of Tourism Law. 2. Travel connects our topic with Transport law. Hospitality connects our topic with civil and public elements. The former, with the traditional accommodation contract, with the “ ξενι ´ α ” (Greek word for hospitality) and with the liability of the host; the latter, with the rules that the public authority, State or local, will gradually dictate to those who host, let us say, professionally. Of these two public and civil components, the first has, in an initial phase, pre‑eminent importance. For private relations, in case of conflict, the general 1 Professor of Law.