Package Travel Cancellations due to COVID-19: The Role of Travel Agencies from the Spanish Perspective Silvia Feliu1 I. March 2020: Global Health Crisis and Tourism; II. The COVID-19 Crisis and Package Travel; III. Termination of the Package Travel Contract (Art. 12 Directive 2015/2302). IV. Urgent Measures Adopted in Spain against the Cancellations of Package Travel due to the Coronavirus: Royal Decree-Law 11/2020; V. Situation of Travel Agencies in March 2021. I. MARCH 2020: GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS AND TOURISM In March 2020, the emergence of Covid-19 put the global tourism sector in check, a particularly sensitive sector that in Spain contributes more than 12% of the country's GDP. According to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics, in 2019 the weight of tourism reached 154,487 million euros, which was 12.4% of GDP. The characteristic branches of tourism generated 2.72 million jobs, 12.9% of total employment. Without a doubt, Spain is a strong tourist power, and the tourism sector is essential for the country's economy. The health crisis is showing a great impact on both external and internal demand and, although it is true that the tourism sector has already suffered different crises, the truth is that none had reached such magnitude. There is currently great uncertainty about how this health crisis will affect the Spanish social structure but also in Europe and the rest of the world, in the short and medium term. Several experts in the field understand that a phenomenon of this nature represents a new opportunity to reinvent the new tourism and suggest different measures2: 1 University of the Balearic Islands, Spain; silvia.feliu@uib.es. 2 See the document (open acces): web de la Asociación Española de Expertos Científicos en Turismo- AECIT, available in www.aecit.org.
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