Sustainable Tourism Law

384 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW I. THE PURPOSE OF THE DRAFT CONVENTION Since the 88th session of the Executive Council of the UNWTO (6 to 8 June 2010) and the 19th session of the General Assembly (10 to 13 October 2011), the insufficiency of the existing binding rules has been recognized at the global level governing the rights and obligations of tourists/consumers and tourism service providers. The draft UNWTO Convention on the Protection of Tourists and the Rights and Obligations of Tourism Service Providers 1 (hereinafter called “the draft Convention”) aims to fulfil this gap and provide a real and standard protection to tourists. This aim is crystal clear in the preamble: “Noting the development of tourism and its economic, social, cultural and sustainable role, Having assessed the insufficiency and lack of consistency of existing rules at the global level governing the rights and obligations of tourists and of tourism service providers, particularly in a context of increasing diversification of destinations and generating countries, Recognizing the need to establish uniform provisions relating to the protection of tourists and the rights and obligations of tourism service providers in order to enhance transparency and increase legal certainty for tourists and tourism service providers, Desiring the achievement of an appropriate level of protection of tourists, the clarification of the rights and obligations of tourism service providers and the increase of the confidence of tourists, as consumers, in tourism service providers, Aiming to achieve a fair balance between the interests of tourists and tourism service providers” And it is also clear in the Annex III of the draft Convention, which governs the accommodation (Article 1): “(a)’Accommodation service’ means the provision of accommodation against remuneration, typically on a daily or weekly basis, principally for short stay of tourists provided by different types of establishments 1 In this paper we will use the version of the draft Convention presented in the UNWTO twenty-ninth joint meeting of the Commission for East Asia and the Pacific and the Commission for South Asia, held in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on the 17 th May 2017.