IMPACT OF THE CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES (COVID-19 PANDEMIC) ON THE POSITION OF CONSUMERS IN PACKAGE TRAVEL CONTRACTS

ABSTRACT

It is a well-known fact that tourism as an industry makes an extremely large contribution to the Croatian economy. In tourist traffic, the most frequent type of travel, travel is organized under holidays package travel contracts. One of the issues that have become extremely topical in the last few years, due to the situation of the Covid-19 outbreak, is the question of the impact of the changed circumstances on the possibility and conditions of termination of package travel contracts and the rights and obligations arising from such method of termination of the contract for the contracting parties. Due to the importance of this issue, the legal provisions of the Law on the Provision of Services in Tourism have also been amended, which stipulates special conditions related to the termination of the contract and the issuance of vouchers under the conditions of the specific circumstances caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, relating to outstanding package travel contracts, which were to be implemented after 1st of March 2020. The legalframework of the provision ofpackage services, impact of the changed circumstances on the possibility and conditions of termination of package travel contracts as well as the legal consequences of the termination of the contract, as the topics of this paper, are all of great importance both for the providers of these services, namely travel agents, as well as users of these services - passengers (consumers).