Research On The Legal Issues Of Consumer Protection In Tourism Market

Since the end of the 20th century, Chinese tourist industry has been rapid development, and plays a more and more important role in national economy development. Chinese tourism resources are very rich, but the phenomenon of infracting consumer rights is very serious in the tourist industry. The legitimate rights and interests of tourists can't be effectively protected. The legitimate right protection of tourists has been related to the healthy development of China's tourism industry. From the perspective of consumer protection, this thesis argues that the legal awareness of tourists is not strong, it is in a weak position compared to dealers in tourism consumption, the operators also have a large number of unfair competitions, the existing legal system is also not perfect, and there is a dispute it can not be effectively solved. These reasons cause that the rights and interests of our country tourists (such as right to safe, right to know, right to respect, right to claim et al.) have been seriously violated in consumption. Learning from experiences of developed country such as the U.S., Japan and the European Union et al., the thesis suggests that the travel consumer protection can be perfected as the following aspects. Firstly, in legislation, the Basic Law of Tourism was recommended to establish, to protect the legal rights of tourists doubly with the Consumer Protection Law. Secondly, the responsibility of third party travel should be made clearly. The punitive damages and the spiritual compensation system should be applied to tourism market. Thirdly, the supervision of government departments should be strengthened and small claims system and inversion of burden of proof systems should be established. Finally, the supervision of consumers association, tourism association and community should be strengthened. It is hoped that this research can give some help to regulate the tourism market, establish a more perfect mechanism for the travel consumer protection to protect the legitimate rights and interests of tourism consumers effectively and ensure the health, sustainable and stable development of our tourism economy.