Research On The Rules And Practice Of Compensation For Personal Damages Of Foreign Cruise Passengers

In the Vision and Action on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21 st Century Maritime Silk Road,the Chinese government clearly proposes to promote the cruise tourism cooperation of the 21 st Century Maritime Silk Road.Foreign cruise tourism has become an important research field under the One Belt And One Road initiative.With the rapid development of foreign cruise tourism,the personal damage cases of cruise tourism are gradually increasing in judicature.And there is no special legal provision on the protection of passenger rights in China,which has also aroused the concern of cruise passengers and the academic community.As an emerging tourism industry in China,cruise tourism is different from cruise transport and land tourism,but there are some similarities,which also shows the dual characteristics of cruise ship tourism,both maritime transport and tourism services.Because there are some special regulations on outbound tourism in China and the cruise companies are basically funded by foreign investors,Chinese cruise tourism has formed a tripartite legal relationship between cruise companies,travel agencies and cruise passengers.After analyzing the basic legal issues of cruise tourism and the rule system of compensation for personal damage of cruise passengers,this paper selects the cases of Sapphire Princess and Selina as the judicial practice case to analyze the problems in the relevant theories and practices in China.More precisely,these following theoretical and practical problems are included.Firstly,in the terms of application of law,because the relations with foreigners and the dynamic condition of the cruise tourism may lead to the difficulty of the high seas application.However the application of the law of flag hotly discussed among the academic community may cause the phenomenon of no real connection.Therefore,it is necessary to integrate a variety of factors to choose the application of law.Secondly,in the aspect of security obligation,due to Chinese cruise tourism involves the operators of cruise companies and travel agencies.They have different responsibilities in cruise tourism,so there should be something different in the security of obligation.Due to the lack of special regulations on cruise tourism,it may cause confusion between their security obligation.Thirdly,in the terms of the limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims,Chinese current system cannot adapt to the particularity of cruise tourism and cannot conform to the situation of economic development,so it is necessary to improve the system of the limitation of Liability forMaritime Claims in our country.Fourthly,in the terms of the doctrine of liability fixation,because the professional knowledge and technology of the cruise,the doctrine of presumption for personal damage compensation may become a legal loophole which the cruise companies may not to assume the responsibility,it is not conducive to the protection of the rights of cruise passengers.By drawing lessons from the legislative experience of advanced cruise tourism countries such as Europe and the United States and the system of the Athens convention 2002.This paper find out that the international cruise tourism law shows a trend on enacting the specific legislation,which is also the future legislative trend after the in-depth development of cruise tourism in China.However,considering the urgent situation of Chinese legislative resources allocation and legal issues concerning cruise ship tourism,this paper holds that it is reasonable to choose the special provisions under the background of the revision of the Maritime Law.In order to protect the rights of cruise passengers,standardize the behavior of cruise companies,and promote the development of foreign cruise tourism in China.Aiming at the problems in foreign cruise tourism and according to the current provisions of relevant laws in China,this paper proposes the following three optimization suggestions.In the first place,in terms of application of law,this paper suggest to establish the rule of the principle of the closest connection based on some limited connecting factors.In the second place,in terms of security obligations,the security obligations of cruise companies and travel agencies should be clearly defined.In different periods and circumstances different criteria should be distinguished between them.In the third place,in terms of limitation of liability,we should not only raise the standard according to the economic development of our country,but also standardize the application scope and quoting system.