Sustainable Tourism Law

214 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW the tourist counterpart for what concerns the discipline of accommodation contracts mentioned in Annex III. Being the person, legal or natural, private or public who sells, provides or is committed to provide a tourist service to the traveller, (Art. 3, lett. c , of General provisions), the tourism service provider through the local representative or the local agency is the most important subject in the hosting Country, to be contacted immediately to provide tourists with assistance ( ex Art. 2, Recommended Practice 2.5, Annex I). To the tourist service provider is connected the definition of “Trader” mentioned in Art. 1, Standard 1.1, lett. a , of Annex II – Package travel 38 , as well as the definition of “Package” stated by the same Article 39 . Based on Art. 9, “ Failure of performance or improper performance ”, the International Convention State Parties acting as a tourist contract counterpart adopt all necessary measures to ensure that the organiser is liable to the tourist for the performance of the obligations under the package travel contract, irrespective of whether such obligations are to be performed by the organiser or by other tourism service providers , without prejudice to the damages which may be claimed. The Annex II – Package travel also refers to tourist service provider where the definition of “ Linked travel arrangement ” is mentioned, as requested by the Recommended Practice 1.2 40 . In addition, the discipline to be applied to tourist service providers is mentioned by Art. 12, still in Annex II – Package travel, dealing with “Insolvency protection and information requirements for linked travel arrangements”. In detail, the Recommended Practice 12.2 states that the trader should state in a clear, comprehensible and prominent manner that the tourist will not benefit from any of the rights applying exclusively to packages, that each service provider will be solely responsible for the proper contractual performance of the tourist service provided 41 . 38 In this sense “ Trader ” means any natural person or any legal person (irrespective of whether privately or publicly owned) [...] acting as a tourism service provider”. 39 See Art. 1, Standard 1.1, lett. d , Annex II – Package travel . 40 States Parties should consider as “ Linked travel arrangement ” at least two different types of tourism services, which cover a period of more than twenty-four hours or include overnight accommodation, purchased for the purpose of the same trip or holiday, not constituting a package, resulting in the conclusion of separate contracts with the individual tourism service providers”. 41 Instead, the tourist will benefit from insolvency protection in accordance with the Recommended Practice 12.1, according to which “States Parties should ensure that traders facilitating linked travel arrangements should provide security for the refund of all payments they receive from tourists insofar as a tourism service which is part of a linked travel arrangement is not performed as a consequence of their insolvency. If such traders are the party responsible for the passenger transport, the security shall also cover the tourist’s repatriation”.