THE ROLE OF TRAVEL AGENCIES FROM THE SPANISH PERSPECTIVE 305 that it will give him a voucher but communicates that it will not return the money. However, the Package Travel Directive requires the traveller to be reimbursed for the package travel, which means facing the bankruptcy of many travel agencies that do not have the necessary liquidity to proceed with these reimbursements. In this situation, the FETAVE asked the Government to relax the regulations regarding reimbursements due to the thousands of cancellations that are taking place, to avoid the bankruptcy of the sector tourist in Spain. They requested the possibility of also offering bonuses for the lack of liquidity to reimburse package travel inorder to protect employment in the tourism sector. It was necessary to avoid the collective cancellation of trips and turn them into postponements for a time of the decision to travel with the possibility of changing the destination and, ultimately, later when the liquidity situation allows it, recovering the money. For all these reasons, it requested that the European Package Travel Directive be put into “hibernation mode” during this period of exception. The Spanish government responded to these requirements through a Royal Decree with which it adopted urgent measures in this regard. IV. URGENT MEASURES ADOPTED IN SPAIN AGAINST THE CANCELLATIONS OF PACKAGE TRAVEL DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS: ROYAL DECREE-LAW 11/2020 In order to provide consumers and users with the mechanisms that guarantee their rights and their protection, on 1 April 2020, Royal Decree-Law 11/2020, of 31 March11 was published, adopting urgent measures complementary in the social and economic sphere to face COVID-19. It regulates in article 36 a series of measures that affect the rights of consumers. Precisely, section 4 of this article refers to the cancellation of package travel due to COVID-19 and establishes that, in the event that the package travel contract is canceled, as a result of COVID-19, the consumer or user may choose to: a) a voucher to be used within one year from the end of the state of alarm and its extensions, for an amount equal to the corresponding reimbursement. In the event that this period of one year elapses and it has not been enjoyed by the consumer, he will have the right to a full refund. 11 BOE no. 91, 01-04-2020; Real Decreto-Ley 11/2020, de 31 de marzo, por el que se adoptan medidas urgentes complementarias en el ámbito social y económico para hacer frente al COVID-19.
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