Consumer profiling in air transport and tourism Chiara Tincani1 1. Italian models for regulating the use of algorithms in scheduled air transport. 2. The first interventions of the Competition and Market Authority. 3. Tariffs in air transport, agreements restricting competition and the so - called profiling. 4. The regulations on the processing of personal data, air fares and profiling. 5. Profiling in the hotel sector. In 2022 and in the first six months of 2023, not only in the air transport, strong tensions were reported, with significant increases in transport prices and marked fluctuations, with no comprehensible reasons. Although the exact determination of the causes for such behaviour on the part of the airlines has remained unsubstantiated, there is a widespread belief that it depended on the systematic use of highly sophisticated mathematical tools for calculating the charge, with algorithms. The Italian legislator declared his conviction that he had to correct imbalances originated by the epidemic situation and increased by the use of algorithms.The Law No. 136 of 2023, which converted the Decree - Law No. 104 of 2023, refers all initiatives to the Italian Competition and Market Authority, which "ascertains that the algorithmic coordination of fares practised by airline companies in the aviation sector facilitates, implements or in any case monitors an agreement restrictive of competition, even if pre - existing, or ascertains that the level of prices set through a revenue management system constitutes an abuse of a dominant position". Therefore, on the one hand, the rule has a general object and concerns the entire national territory and, on the other hand, it dwells on “algorithmic coordination”. Thus, there has been a shift from an intervention on the use of algorithms as an intrinsic factor of potential risk to a view of their significance for the preservation of the competitive structure of the market. The issue suggests a broader reflection; we can think of the hotel sector where the use of pricing procedures based on user profiling is imagined, especially with regard to the resourses of the customer. The point is to assess whether these pricing mechanisms are unfair commercial practices, with possible recourse to the safeguards provided in Italy by the Consumer Code. Keywords: Air fares - Use of algorithms - The Italian models – The EU regulations – Profiling in the aviation sector – Profiling in the hotel sector. DOI 10.60559/ijtthl2024-007 1 University of Verona.
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