672 TOURISM LAW IN EUROPE legislation typified as administrative infraction in the law of tourism. Administrative offenses, unless they have prescribed in the periods provided by law, may be punished with the penalties established in the tourism laws, penalties that must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offense committed and the specific circumstances or specific appreciated. Keywords: tourism, inspection, administrative illegality, sanction, administrative infraction. I. INTRODUCTION In Spain, tourism legislation is the responsibility of the Regions – the socalled “Autonomous Communities” – because the 1978 Constitution (art. 148.1.18º) recognises the exclusive competence of the Autonomous Communities on the subject of “tourism” and, on the other hand, does not provide for any competence of the State on tourism. Therefore, there is no national or state Tourism Law, but a regional Tourism Law in each Spanish Autonomous Community. Moreover, these regional laws regulate the regulation of the tourism sector in each region, attributing to the regional public administration the powers of inspection and sanctioning, which will be the subject of this chapter. II. THE TOURIST ADMINISTRATIVE INSPECTION II.1. Concept and Delimitation The Laws of Tourism establish the duties or essential obligations of the companies and of the users of the tourist services, legal duties that are developed later by the regulations (Decree of hotel lodgings, Decree on travel agencies, Decree of rural tourism and so on), that specify or specify those legal duties or, in occasions, add some others of minor relevance. Additionally, the laws and regulations entrust the public tourism administration with the mission of verifying that businessmen and users comply with the duties imposed by those rules, comply with tourism legality2 and do not 2 As C. SANZ DOMÍNGUEZ has recalled, “it is not, therefore, a mere function or capacity to act, but a genuine public duty which the autonomous administration is obliged to assume in order to guarantee
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