190 LEGAL IMPACTS OF COVID-19 IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY as an alternative to reimbursement in money, are subject to the passenger’s or traveller’s voluntary acceptance. According to the Recommendation, making vouchers more attractive, as an alternative to a cash refund, would increase their acceptance by travellers and passengers. From the Commission perspective, this would help to ease the liquidity problems of operators and could ultimately lead to better protection of the interests of passengers and travellers. To achieve this, the Commission recommends that vouchers have, inter alia, the following characteristics: a minimum validity period of 12 months; the organisers should automatically refund the amount of the voucher concerned to the traveller, at the latest, 14 days after the end of its validity period, if the voucher has not been redeemed; if the vouchers have a validity period longer than 12 months, the passengers should have the right to ask for reimbursement within 12 months after the issuance of the voucher concerned, as well as afterwards, subject to any prescriptive time limits; the travellers should be able to use vouchers for payments in respect of all new bookings made before their expiry date even if the payment or the service takes place after that date; the travellers should be able to use the vouchers towards payment for any transport services or package travel offered by the carrier or organiser; subject to availability and irrespective of any fare or price difference, the organisers should ensure that the vouchers allow travellers to book a package travel contract with the same type of services or of equivalent quality as the terminated package; the organisers should consider extending the possibility to use the vouchers for bookings with other entities that form part of the same group of companies; if the package travel was booked through a travel agency or other intermediary, the organisers should allow the vouchers to be used for new bookings also through the same travel agency or another intermediary; the vouchers should be transferable to another traveller without any additional cost if the providers of the services included in the package agree to the transfer without any additional cost; the vouchers should be issued on a durable medium, such as email or paper, indicate their validity period and specify all the rights attached to them; and
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