Sustainable Tourism Law

66 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW Tour Operator Article 9 of Law of 29 July 2015 no. 115, amending art. 50 of the Tourism Code, has – since 30 June 2016 – introduced the obligation for tour organizers (and retailers of travel packages) to obtain a suitable banking or insurance guarantee to provide, even in cases of insolvency or bankruptcy, for the reimbursement of the price paid by the traveller for the purchase of the tourist package and his immediate return (see also art. 183, paragraph 1, letters a) and d) of the Italian Code of Private Insurance) 58 . A new definition of hotel contract Therefore, these are the main additions. But tourism law has also revisited ancient private institutes, renewing their content. Let’s consider, as a first example, the hotel contract. Its traditional notion was revised, and its typical causal element (accommodation and hospitality for a consideration has changed. The hotel – or inn, as it was formerly referred to, or receptive structure, as we call it nowadays – has always been the focus of careful rules, in private and public law. With reference to public law, the hotel activities are object of administrative controls, with standard rules regarding safety, hygiene and public security. With reference to private law, it must be noted that in recent times, doctrine and jurisprudence have accentuated the causal relevance of so called Hotel Services. The formerly called “ancillary obligations” have assumed a paramount relevance in the definition of the hotel contract 59 . In the Italian Civil Code, the hotel contract is governed solely by the lodging in a hotel room and the consequent liability of the hotelier (Articles 1783, 1784 and 1785), the hotel owner’s credit guarantee (Article 2760) on the prescription of such claims (Articles 2954 and 2958). It should be noted that, pursuant to art. 2760 c.c., the hotel’s credit has a privilege over the things tourists bring to the hotel and the dependencies (Article 2760). Hotel booking and preparatory contracts It is in the framework of hotel businesses, in the wider context of tourism and tourist protection, that the study of reservation, seen as “hotel booking” (prenotazione alberghiera) has become important. 58 See IVASS Information, available at https://www.ivass.it/consumatori/azioni-tutela/lettere-mercato/documenti/ Letter_to_the_Market_of_16_March_2017.pdf?language_id=3 59 See, as an example of the traditional approach, Supreme Court, July 7, 2000, n. 9662: “The hotel contract constitutes an atypical contract, with which the hotelier undertakes the obligation to provide the customer, against a consideration, a series of services to give and to do that focus on the granting of the use of accommodation, which is accompanied by other services, instrumental and accessories to the first”.