286 LEGAL IMPACTS OF COVID-19 IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY unused, the consumer may request a full refund of any payment made. In any case, the eventual offer of a temporary substitute bond must have sufficient financial support to guarantee its execution”. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the organiser or the retailer must proceed to make a refund to consumers and users if they request the termination of the contract, following the provisions of section 2 of Article 160 of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, provided that the service providers included in the package travel contract had fully reimbursed the amount corresponding to their services. If only some of the service providers of the combined trip refunded the organiser or the retailer, or the amount returned by each of them was partial, the consumer or user would be entitled to the partial refund corresponding to the returns made, being discounted from the amount of the bonus given by the termination of the contract. The organiser or retailer will proceed to make the already mentioned refunds within a period not exceeding 60 days from the date of the termination of the contract or from that in which the service providers had proceeded with their repayment. However, these provisions of article 36 do not coincide exactly with the provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 12 of Directive (EU) 2015/2302, of 25 November, on package travel and linked travel arrangements, on the right of withdrawal before the start of the trip. Neither with Article 160 of the Consolidated Text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of 16 November, modified by Royal Decree-Law 23/2018, of 21 December, on the transposition of the directives on trademarks, rail transport, package tours and related travel services, which in its second section provides that “when unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occur at the destination or in the immediate vicinity that significantly affects the execution of the combined trip or the transport of passengers to the destination, the traveller will have the right to terminate the contract before the start of the contract without paying any penalty. In this case, the traveller will be entitled to a full refund of any payment made, but not to additional compensation”. Some measures mentioned in Article 36, on the one hand, worsen consumer treatment in favour of organisers and retailers, since the former, in some cases, will be entitled to a partial refund and, in the case of package tours, will be obliged to accept the voucher. Some problems arise; for example, how does the consumer know who has reimbursed? On the other hand, is it fair that, at this moment, the organiser or retailer must assume costs that have not been returned, for example, air carriers? These Government measures can only be understood in the current context of great concern about the viability of the organisers and
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