What are the exemptions for travelers and travel agencies in case of disputes?

Traveling with a group is the choice of many travelers, but in practice, disputes often occur between travelers and travel agencies. When the personal rights and interests of these group tourists are infringed, they have the right to pursue the legal responsibility of the travel agency, but not all the responsibilities for the damage to their rights and interests are borne by the travel agency. So in the dispute between travelers and travel agencies, what are the exemption situations of travel agencies? Bian Xiao will give you a detailed introduction of the specific exemption situation below, please read on patiently. ? Disputes between tourists and travel agencies Travel agencies are exempt: First, the third party is exempt from the damage caused to tourists. Generally speaking, as a specialized agency engaged in the tourism industry, travel agencies have more professional knowledge and skills than tourists, and can effectively prevent and respond to emergencies in the process of tourism. Therefore, the judicial interpretation of tourism disputes stipulates the travel agency's obligation to ensure the safety of tourists. This obligation is mainly manifested in the obligation to take necessary measures to prevent damage and the obligation to rescue tourists in time when they are personally injured. When passengers have physical or property accidents, such as illness, robbery, theft, loss of documents and property, etc. As the handling capacity of travel agencies in tourist areas is usually superior to that of tourists, travel agencies should provide necessary assistance and handling regardless of whether it can be attributed to passengers or travel agencies or even natural disasters. However, if it is caused by reasons not attributable to the travel agency, the expenses incurred, such as medical expenses, agency certificate fees or credit card loss reporting fees, will be borne by the passengers. However, in the process of tourism, if the behavior of a third person causes personal injury or property loss to the tourists, the third person shall bear the responsibility. If the travel agency fails to fulfill its security obligations, it shall bear corresponding supplementary responsibilities for the part that cannot be compensated by the third party. For example, after C signed up for a tour organized by D Travel Agency, D Travel Agency transferred C to a travel agency without C's consent. During the tour, the tourist bus of A travel agency was hijacked by B, and B caused the tourist travel agency to be injured in the hijacking process. Party B shall bear the tort liability to Party C. Whether the travel agency bears the liability depends on whether it has fulfilled its security obligations. If it cannot be proved that Travel Agency A has fulfilled its security obligations, Party C may require Travel Agency D and Travel Agency A to bear joint liability commensurate with the degree of fault for the part that Party B cannot compensate. ? 2. For the exemption of tourists who have not fulfilled their obligation to truthfully inform when signing a travel contract, the travel agency may require tourists to provide personal health information related to tourism activities or fill out a health form truthfully according to the differences of tourist routes and tourism projects. In this regard, many tourists often do not provide relevant real information based on personal privacy. In the process of traveling, tourists participate in tourism activities that are not suitable for their physical conditions without telling the real information, and the travel agency does not bear the liability for compensation. In addition, if the travel agency discourages tourists from participating in tourism activities that are not suitable for their physical conditions, the travel agency will not be responsible for the personal injury caused by it. ? 3. Exemption from infringement of tourists' rights and interests by tourism auxiliary service providers It is generally believed that tour guides (or tour guides), airlines or tour bus companies, or restaurants that actually receive tourists, usually have cooperative relations with travel agencies. At this time, tour guides, airlines, tour bus companies or hotels that receive tourists are all in the position of performance assistants of travel agencies to fulfill their obligations to tourists. Therefore, there is no travel contract relationship between them and the tourists. For example, a passenger signs a travel contract with B travel agency to participate in the East China 10 day tour organized by B travel agency. Travel agency B reached a contract with Hotel C for the benefit of the third party, and passenger A stayed in Hotel C for the benefit of the third party, but there is no travel contract relationship with Hotel C. Therefore, when tourists suffer personal injury or property loss due to the reasons of tourism auxiliary service providers, tourists can directly sue the tourism auxiliary service providers and investigate their tort liability. However, after the travel agency that actually provides tourism services has fulfilled the obligation of carefully selecting and designating the tourism auxiliary service providers, tourists may not ask the travel agency to bear the liability for damages. ? 4. Exemption from losses suffered by tourists when they arrange their own activities, including independent and free activities arranged by travel agencies during the travel itinerary, tourists not participating in the activities of the travel itinerary, and personal activities that tourists temporarily leave the team with the consent of the tour guide or team leader. During the above-mentioned period, tourists have generally left the team to act alone, so travel agencies have no way of knowing the activities of tourists and can't control the possible personal and property risks of tourists. Furthermore, travel agencies cannot provide security obligations and notification obligations. Therefore, if tourists suffer personal or property losses during this period, travel agencies generally do not bear the liability for damages. However, considering that tourists take part in the itinerary arranged by the travel agency, it is generally because they are unfamiliar with the customs, routes or languages of the tourist attractions in the travel itinerary, and the travel agency knows the local situation better than tourists because of its business relationship. Therefore, when the personal and property rights and interests of tourists are damaged, travel agencies should take reasonable and necessary protection and rescue measures to avoid the expansion of the personal and property rights and interests of tourists. For example, when tourists suffer personal or property damage such as money loss, illness, injury, robbery, etc. in their free activities, travel agencies should attach assistance obligations such as assisting tourists to report to the police and sending them to the hospital for medical treatment. In other words, only when the travel agency fails to fulfill the above-mentioned rescue obligations can tourists invoke this article to investigate the responsibility of the travel agency and the travel agency that actually provides travel services. ? V. Exemption of tourists' personal property losses In the trial practice, disputes caused by tourists' luggage and property losses often occur. Tourists' luggage can generally be divided into luggage and personal belongings. Travel agencies should fulfill the obligation of keeping luggage and inconvenient to carry with them. However, whether tourists have the obligation to keep their belongings, such as cash, securities and valuables, is controversial in practice. If tourists don't keep it in advance. Some people think that in tourism relations, tourists are consumers and travel agencies are operators providing tourism services, and there is a legal relationship of consumption between them. If a tourist's personal belongings are lost during the trip, from the perspective of comprehensively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of tourists, we can consider applying the Consumer Protection Law to require the travel agency to bear the responsibility. The reason is that the first paragraph of Article 18 of the Consumer Protection Law stipulates: "Business operators should ensure that the goods or services they provide meet the requirements of protecting personal and property safety. For goods and services that may endanger personal and property safety, consumers should be given a true explanation and a clear warning, and the methods of correctly using goods or receiving services and ways to prevent harm should be explained and marked. According to this article, travel agencies should ensure that the services they provide meet the requirements of tourists' property safety. If a travel agency violates the provisions of this article, tourists can demand the travel agency to bear the liability for compensation according to the second paragraph of Article 48 of this law, which stipulates that "if the operator fails to fulfill the obligation of ensuring the safety of consumers and causes damage to consumers, it shall bear the tort liability". However, we believe that travel agencies do not have the above obligation to ensure the safety of tourists' belongings. The reason is that in the process of providing tourism services, the articles carried by tourists are not actually delivered to the travel agency for safekeeping, and they are not under the actual control of the travel agency, so the travel agency can't objectively fulfill the obligation of safekeeping, nor can it assume the responsibility of safekeeping. Moreover, even if the travel agency is forced to bear the liability for the loss of tourists' personal belongings, there are still difficulties in proof. Because tourists generally don't publicize their articles to travel agencies in advance, it is difficult to prove the specific category and quantity of articles lost during the tour. Therefore, if the above personal belongings are lost, tourists cannot claim that the travel agency is responsible for it. In addition to the above circumstances, even if the luggage items entrusted by the tourists to the travel agency are lost due to force majeure, accidents, tourists' faults, natural attributes of the items, tourists generally cannot claim damages. ? 6. Exemption from losses suffered by tourists after leaving the tour group The so-called withdrawal from the tour group generally refers to the behavior of group tourists leaving the tour group without the consent of the tour guide and not completing the agreed itinerary with the team. In the process of tourism, the behavior of tourists leaving the tourism team without permission violates the cooperation obligation of tourists and belongs to serious breach of contract. Travel agencies generally don't know where tourists go during their departure. In fact, this makes it impossible for travel agencies to continue to provide travel services and fulfill related obligations. Therefore, unless it can be proved that the travel agency is at fault in the problem of tourists leaving the group, the travel agency will not be responsible for any personal injury or property loss suffered by tourists after leaving the group. Tourists have the right to investigate the legal responsibility of the infringer when their rights and interests are damaged. However, in the event of the above six kinds of disputes with travel agencies, travel agencies do not have to bear their legal responsibilities, and travelers have no right to pursue the responsibility of travel agencies. Therefore, travelers need to carefully consider whether the travel agency needs to be responsible before investigating the responsibility of the travel agency. If they are not exempted, they can take measures such as consultation, arbitration and litigation to safeguard their rights.