Sustainable Tourism Law

FROM TOURISM TO SUSTAINABLE TOURISM 69 Overbooking In an air transport contract, overbooking describes the phenomenon where airlines accept more bookings than the number of seats available on the aircraft. Overbooking regulation derives from the Council Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 of 4 February 1991 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transports. According to the Council Regulation, an overbooked flight means “ a flight where the number of passengers holding a confirmed reservation and presenting themselves for check-in within the required time limit and as stipulated exceeds the number of available seats on that flight ”. The Council Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 is no longer in force, as per Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91. Denied boarding is defined as “ a refusal to carry passengers on a flight, although they have presented themselves for boarding under the conditions laid down in Article 3(2), except where there are reasonable grounds to deny them boarding, such as reasons of health, safety or security, or inadequate travel documentation ”. Insignia and trademarks in the field of tourism Tourist enterprises, whether they are Tour Operators, Travel Agents, hotels or restaurants, use, like every business, the traditional industrial law institutes (insignia, trade name, trademark, domain name). For the distinctive signs of an enterprise, the principle for the novelty and distinctive character of signage applies. Pursuant to Article 22 of the Italian IP Code, it is forbidden to adopt as a firm, a name or a corporate name, an insignia or a domain name or other distinctive sign that is identical or similar to a third party trademark if the identity or the similarity between the business of the signs’ holders and the goods or services for which the trademark is adopted can generate confusion for the public, which may also constitute a risk of association between the two signs. Consumer protection and tourism. The Tourists as a Consumer In Italian law, consumer protection is now entrusted to the Consumer Code (Legislative Decree 6 September, 2005, no. 206), as amended. The Code was the point of arrival of a process developed over the last few decades. As is well known, consumerism was born in the United States in the 1930s, when the first