HOTEL CANCELLATIONS AND CONSUMER RIGHTS 117 4. HOTEL BOOKING: NON-REFUNDABLE RESERVATIONS AND CONSUMER RIGHTS When a hotel booking forms a part of a package travel, the traveller’s right to withdraw from a package travel contract is relatively clear. Namely, according to the Package Travel Directive (Directive (EU) No. 2015/2302), the traveller has the right to terminate the contract at any time before the start of the package, while he may be required to pay a termination fee. However, in the event of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances, he may terminate a contract without being obliged to pay a termination fee or compensation. An epidemic is explicitly recognised as an unavoidable and extraordinary circumstance according to the Package Travel Directive. The existence of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances might not be so evident in the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak, when the virus was (officially) present only in few states, and the state of pandemic had not yet been declared. At that time, travelling around the world was still possible. If a traveller decided to cancel a journey in this stage, for preventive reasons, it should be examined, whether there had been a significant risk to his health, at the place of destination or its immediate vicinity, which could significantly affect the performance of the package or the carriage to the destination (Art. 12(2) of the Package Travel Directive). In order to tackle this problem, it will be useful for the courts to consider the case law on package travel agreements from the times of the SARS epidemic. As far as domestic package travel contracts are concerned, no special rules concerning the rights of travellers and tourist companies for the time of coronavirus have so far been adopted in Slovenia. Nowadays, many tourists prefer to organise their travel by themselves. Usually, they book the accommodation online, either on the host’s website or via platforms such as booking.com or airbnb.com, and, in both cases, they enter into a contract with the host (hotel owner, etc.). Since the EU law does not explicitly regulate this area of tourism law, it remains a national competence. However, it should be noted that, in those matters, travellers should not be deprived of the protection ensured by the EU consumer law, including the protection against unfair contract terms and unfair commercial practices. Shortly after the epidemic had been declared in Slovenia, on 12 March 2020, hotels have to remain closed until further notice. Similar is the situation in many other EU Member States. In this later stage of the pandemic, it is impossible for the hotels to fulfil their contractual obligations. According to Slovenian law, the traveller is in such cases relieved of its contractual obligation as well. Provided
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