184 LEGAL IMPACTS OF COVID-19 IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY reimbursement of the sums already paid, and to the payment of any commissions to intermediaries, which allegedly are not due. The situation is still currently very uncertain and delicate. OTAs continue to reimburse their customers and issue invoices to operators. For their part, the latter insist on challenging the legitimacy of the behaviour of the intermediary agencies. In fact, the law grants the hotelier the right to offer a substitute service of equivalent quality, higher or lower with a refund of the difference in price, or to reimburse the price or, otherwise, to issue a voucher, to be used within one year of its issue, for an amount equal to the refund due. In this respect, the attitude of the OTAs appears to be strongly detrimental to the position of the hospitality operators and illegitimate from the point of view of compliance with the law, even before those of the contract. The question appears more uncertain when concerning transport contracts and, in particular, air transport. The problem in Italy was immediately raised by consumer protection associations. In airline practice, it has been verified that low fares carriers have almost always refunded the ticket price, while traditional airlines have very often opted to issue the voucher. To put it briefly, the case of cancellation of the transport by the carrier falls within the scope of the European Union regulations on transport (air, maritime, rail, bus), which provide for the passenger’s right to choose between an alternative journey or the reimbursement of the amount paid. These principles have been confirmed by the European Commission through the publication of the “Interpretative guidelines on passenger rights regulations”. Nonetheless, if the passenger cannot – or no longer wishes to – travel because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the carrier has no legal obligation at the European level. Moreover, it is possible that national measures taken to deal with passengers may differ from one Member State to another and are not addressed in the Commission's guidelines. However, when the passenger cannot travel due to the measures taken under COVID-19, this is outside the cases governed by the EU regulations and, therefore, reference should be made to the national law. According to it, in certain circumstances, the carrier should reimburse the amount paid for the travel or issue a voucher of the same amount to be used within one year of the issue, within fifteen days from the communication whereby a passenger informs on the impossibility to travel. As far as the package travel contract is concerned, under certain circumstances, the Italian law allowed the organiser to issue a voucher in favour of the traveller, instead of reimbursing the price. Once again, according to Article 28 of Law-Decree No. 9/2020, the potestative right of option – the power of choice – is up to the tour operator,
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