Indagine sull'ipotesi "diritto del lavoro del turismo"

The thesis focuses on work in the tourism sector, an area that, despite its economic importance and significant employment impact, has long been overlooked in labour law scholarship. Starting from this gap in the literature, the study examines tourism from a labour law perspective, questioning the adequacy of legal instruments – both statutory and collectively agreed – in relation to the specific features and critical issues that characterize the sector. The underlying hypothesis is that such features, above all the seasonality and discontinuity of work activity, justify a reflection in terms of specialty, to the point of allowing for the identification of a possible “tourism labour law” as a subsystem within the broader labour law framework. The analysis begins by outlining the economic and regulatory context, focusing on the role of tourism in the national economy, the allocation of legislative competences between the State and the Regions, and the system of institutional governance. Particular attention is given to the working conditions in the sector, marked by seasonality, employment discontinuity, the widespread use of flexible contracts, outsourcing, undeclared work, and limited access to social protection. These issues are further compounded by persistent labour shortages and a significant skills mismatch. The second chapter examines the collective dimension of work in the tourism sector, including industrial relations and sectoral collective bargaining. It analyses the main actors, the most widely applied national collective agreements, the phenomenon of contractual dumping, and the role of bilateral bodies, with particular focus on contractual welfare schemes. The third chapter is devoted to the flexible contractual arrangements used by tourism companies, analyzed in light of both statutory and collective regulation, with seasonality as the key interpretative lens. The fourth chapter broadens the scope of the research through a comparison with the Spanish legal system, focusing on the regulation of the contrato fijo discontinuo as a model for managing seasonal work while preserving employment stability. The thesis concludes with an empirical Appendix, based on the analysis of administrative data on the tourism labour market in Trentino over the period 2022-2024 and on the collective agreements applied in the territory.