Tourism Law in Europe

12 services that fall under other related ones. In this case, the criterion for attributing liability is more rigid than a simple reference to professional diligence. In fact, the professional is not liable only if they identify the cause of the harmful event and prove that one of the hypotheses indicated exhaustively in Article 51, second paragraph, of the Code applies; in fact, booking errors must be attributable to the traveller or refer to inevitable and extraordinary circumstances. As far as the obligation to pay compensation is concerned, the intermediary is also liable for the damage caused by a ruined holiday, pursuant to article 46, first paragraph; thus, the distinction between the position of the tour operator and that of the intermediary is reinforced. In fact, in line with the different nature of the relationship, the traveller may request compensation for an autonomous item of damage, compensation related to the time of the holiday spent in a useless manner and to the unrepeatability of the lost opportunity. The compensation is claimed “from the tour operator or the seller, according to the responsibility deriving from the violation of the obligations assumed in the respective contracts” 42 . Thus, the risk is rarely borne by the intermediary. 5. The Tourism Code and Consumer Protection The public part of the code limits the liberalisation of the market by means of control instruments aimed at consolidating the interests of existing businesses; on the other hand, the private part of the code is designed to protect tourists. In fact, the code conditions the exercise of the professional’s negotiating power by extending the sphere of the traveller’s rights, and this is even more evident if one considers the regulation as it has evolved. In fact, with the legislative decree no. 206 of 2005 (the so-called Consumer Code), the matter was included in an autonomous Chapter of the Code, the second one, on the assumption that, as a consumer, tourists should have enjoyed the same protection for what was not provided for in tourism. Subsequently, the whole of Chapter Two was repealed by the current Tourism Code and the whole matter was regulated in an autonomous and organic manner. 42 See Article 46, first paragraph, of the Tourism Code.