INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW relations and for the avoidance of any asymetry of the level of information and the negotiating power of the participants on the digital market. Legal instruments to achieve that goal are basically also the same. However, there are some additional information duties to be fulfilled by the participants on the online market. New unfair business practices are defined and the wording of the existing rules on the responsibility of the providers of online services is proposed to be changed. Yet, significant differences in comparison with the offline internal market are reflected in two main aspects. On the one hand, the majority of the new rules on the transparency requirements involve Internet where various services are offered to consumers and business users by the providers of online marketplaces, the providers of online intermediation services, the providers of online search engines, and others. We speak here of various multisided contractual relations between different participants on the online market where consumers, traders and online platforms take up different roles. Such multisided legal relations call for specific transparent acting, particularly by the platform as the strongest and the most dominant party in such multisided contractual relationship. On the other hand, we also witness a tendency of extending the rules on information requirements from the consumers’ to business relationships. These requirements also exist in the contractual relations between platforms and their business users. The aim is to protect business users as the weaker party to the contract, in any legal relationship with platforms (so-called P2B contracts).9 The importance of transparent information is particularly obvious in the context of development of the online tourism services market. Particular attention is paid to the necessity of extending the catalogue of information to be provided to consumers before they make their decisions on the selection of a particular tourism service. Statistics show that there are increasing numbers of consumers, traders and Internet platforms on the online market of tourism services. Tourism is one of the most developed sectors on the online market in the EU and the development of its tourist accomodation sector is very dynamic and fast.10 It is mostly determined by inernet platforms 9 See, for example, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (P2B Regulation). 10 From 2005-2019, the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments in the EU grew by 44 %.The number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in the EU reached (in 2019) 2.9 billion nights. See Eurostat: Tourist Statistics – annual results for the accommodation sector, October, 2020.
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