Tourism Law in Europe

9 7. Professions in Tourism Currently, the regulation of tourism professions in Italy has particularly complex profiles because, on the one hand, it falls within the competence of the State and the Regions and, on the other hand, the national and regional regulations show compatibility issues with the regulations issued by the European Union 15 . The evolution of the reference State legislation stems from the 1888 Public safety regulations, from article 11 of the repealed Law no. 217/1983, which identified for the first time tourist professions, establishing the fundamental principles of their development, to the current structure of the national legal basis. Under article 6 of the Tourism Code, tourism professions provide services to promote tourism, as well as hospitality, assistance, touring and guiding services, aimed at enabling tourists to make the best possible use of their trip and holiday, including in terms of destination knowledge. Essentially, tourism professions are activities carried out in an autonomous professional form, with the aim of providing various types of services to tourists. According to the traditional approach, tourism professions may be divided into several categories, the most common being tourist guides, tourist interpreters and tour leaders. In the 1980s, conference organisers and tourist entertainers were added; some categories are associated with both tourism and sports, such as nautical instructors, ski instructors, mountain and speleological guides. The Regions have also created additional tourism professions, including, among others, nature or hiking guides, horse or cycle tourism guides or leaders, scuba diving tourist guides. The creation of new types of professions and the greatest protection granted to tourists underpin the administrative regime of licensing, the latter being an instrument of administrative verification of the operator’s technical suitability to carry out the activity. For the exercise of the professions mentioned above, other EU citizens are treated in the same way as Italian citizens. However, as stated, as it happened in other Member States, the Italian national legislation has been repeatedly criticised by EU institutions 16 . 15 For the reconstruction of the legislative framework, see Luca RIGHI, Le professioni turistiche , in Vincenzo FANCESCHELLI & Francesco MORANDI, Manuale di diritto del turismo , op . cit ., p. 208. 16 See the three judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Communities of 26 February 1991, case C-180/89, case C-154/89 and case C-198/89, and of 22 March 1994, case C-375/92 concerning Italy, Greece, Belgium and Spain, respectively.