The ICPT is a comprehensive set of principles and recommendations on tourists’ protection in emergency situations, including but not limited to pandemics, and consumer rights of tourists aiming at restoring consumers’ confidence in travel and providing sufficient guarantees to international tourists in the post COVID-19 scenario.
The COVID-19 crisis has revealed the absence of an international legal framework to assist tourists in emergency situations and the lack of uniformity at the international level regarding tourism consumer protection rights.
During the crisis, the closure of borders with little or no notice left hundreds of thousands of tourists stranded abroad, millions of flights were cancelled and the situation soon deteriorated. The lack of clarity regarding one another’s obligations, duties and responsibilities of assistance in emergency situations created great uncertainty around tourists’ rights, impacting negatively on the confidence of tourists in international travel.
Moreover, the introduction of measures such as vouchers and the boom of new digital tourism services without a clear, transparent, and harmonized framework, along with the sharp increase of litigation in travel and tourism disputes, present additional challenges for restoring consumers’ confidence.
In order to restore consumers’ confidence and help the recovery of the tourism sector, the ICPT intends to provide all tourism stakeholders, both in the public and the private sector, with practical guidance on how to assist tourists affected by emergencies, including but not limited to health emergencies, and help develop and harmonize consumer protection standards through a more clear, transparent and efficient framework.
By developing and harmonizing minimum standards for assistance and consumer protection at the international level, the ICPT will provide greater legal protection to tourists as consumers and help make people feel safer and more confident in international travel.
With a more clear, transparent and harmonized framework for the protection of tourists in the post COVID-19 context, the ICPT intends to address the loopholes of the current legal framework and clarify the rights and responsibilities of all actors, including tourists themselves, with a view to improving the contractual relationships between providers and recipients of the various tourism services.
For example, the ICPT provides recommended standards for a more balanced allocation of responsibilities among tourism service providers, establishes a set of minimum requirements for vouchers in order to make them an attractive and reliable alternative to monetary reimbursement for tourists and supports States with a number of principles and recommendations for the alternative (‘ADR’) and online (‘ODR’) resolution of travel and tourism disputes at the international level in a fair, efficient and expeditious manner.
The ICPT represents a fundamental frame of reference to improve and strengthen the level of protection of tourists in emergency situations and consumer rights of tourists at the international level.
By developing and harmonizing minimum international standards, the ICPT will give greater legal certainty and clarity to States regarding their obligations, duties, responsibilities and rights by providing them with practical guidance on how to assist tourists in emergency situations and help develop and harmonize consumer protection standards.
At the same time, it will provide greater legal protection to tourists as consumers and facilitate the creation of safe, competitive and sustainable destinations to promote the recovery of tourism within a more clear, transparent and reliable legal and regulatory framework.
As a flexible instrument of a non-legally binding nature, States remain entirely free to take any measures they consider appropriate for the application of the principles and recommendations of the ICPT and to adapt it to the different conditions and characteristics of their country depending on the specific needs, wants and demands of the tourism sector and in accordance with their institutional framework.
The ICPT is addressed to governments, public and private tourism stakeholders and tourists themselves.