ITALY | SARA D’URSO 339 always offered accommodation and contextual protection to the traveller, who risks leaving home to reach unknown places, of which he does not know the dangers9. Therefore, accommodation has always represented the tourism sector. In fact, it is no coincidence that when the Constitution of the Italian Republic came into force on 1 January 1948, article 117, in listing the matters of concurrent legislative competence between the State and the Regions, inserted “tourism and hotel industry”, rather than “tourism” alone, with an almost overlap of one on the other. A similar fate for the tourist enterprise – which, for decades, kept separate from other enterprises – has been legally identified in the only accommodation companies and travel agencies. The Tourism Framework Law, Law no. 217 of 17 May 1983 (now repealed), defined as tourist enterprises those that carry out the management of accommodation facilities and related tourist services (art. 5), requiring these companies’ owners or managers to register in a special section of the business register established pursuant to Law no. 426 of 11 June 197110. It was only in 2001, with Law no. 135 of 29 March 2001, repealing Law no. 217/1983, that there was a new definition of tourist enterprise, which ultimately leaves out only accommodation and marks the end of the separate register11. That a country’s tourist development passes through the presence of accommodation facilities is undeniable12. In Italy, in addition to unique tourist destinations, the presence of hospitality structures as well has represented, over time, a variable of indisputable success: Grand Hotel, a destination for elite tourism, and inns, for less affluent tourism. Even today, it is through capacity in terms of accommodation that the tourist potential of a place is measured. F. Morandi (eds.), I contratti del turismo dello sport e della cultura (Contracts for tourism, sport and culture), Torino, 2010, pp. 33 et seq. 9 According to Benatti, these are obligations “aimed at preventing or removing damage from the sphere of interests of the other party”. Osservazioni in tema di “doveri di protezione” (Comments on “protective duties), in Riv. trim. dir. e proc. Civ. 1960, p. 1342. 10 Article 9 of Law no. 217/83 also qualifies travel agencies as tourism businesses. 11 Under article 7(1) of Law no. 135 of 2001: “Tourist enterprises are those that carry out economic activities, organised for production, marketing, intermediation and management of products, services, including bathing establishments, infrastructures and businesses, including those of administration that are part of local tourist systems, competing in the formation of the tourist offer”. 12 Law no. 217/83 also introduces the destination constraint to allocate, as definitively as possible, some properties to accommodation: “For the purposes of conservation and protection of the hospitality heritage, as it meets the purposes of public interest and social utility, the regions, with specific laws, subject the accommodation facilities indicated in article 6 to destination restrictions, also in accordance with the indications deriving from the acts of regional planning. Rural lodgings, lodgings managed by landlords and holiday homes and apartments are excluded from the constraint.” [art. 8(1)].
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