旅游消费者权益保护之惩罚性赔偿法律机制研究
Research on Punitive Damages Legal Mechanism for Protecting Consumer Rights in Tourism

旅游业在国内快速发展，旅游消费者合法权益受到侵害的几率大幅上升，旅游消费者可通过主张惩罚性赔偿维护自身权益。由于消费者较旅游服务提供者处弱势地位，消费者主张惩罚性赔偿有法理依据，关于该惩罚性赔偿的规定主要体现在《消费者权益保护法》第五十五条以及《旅游法》第七十条，二者在规范构造上有所不同，因此惩罚性赔偿在适用条件上有所差异，同时均具有违约责任和侵权责任请求权竞合的情况，在实务中为避免维权僵化，不宜将消费者的请求权之选择与惩罚性赔偿严格对应。关于惩罚性赔偿金额的确定应当结合具体案件情况，不宜确定僵化标准。另，实务中关于《消法》第五十五条第一款规定的惩罚性赔偿适用前提的“欺诈”要件存在认定上的模糊性，本文对欺诈发生阶段进行延伸认定，将经营者欺诈的主观状态认定为故意，同时认为经营者不披露达到严重程度时方可认定为“欺诈”。
The tourism industry is developing rapidly in the country, and the chances of the legitimate rights and interests of tourism consumers being infringed have increased significantly. Tourism consumers can protect their own rights and interests by claiming punitive damages. Since consumers are in a weaker position than tourism service providers, consumers have legal basis for claiming punitive damages. The provisions on punitive damages are mainly reflected in Article 55 of the Consumer Rights Protection Law and Article 5 of the Tourism Law. Article 70, the two are different in normative structure, so the applicable conditions for punitive damages are different. At the same time, they both have competing claims for breach of contract liability and tort liability. In practice, rigidity in rights protection is not avoided and it is not appropriate. Strictly correspond the choice of consumer’s right of claim to punitive damages. The determination of the amount of punitive damages should be based on the specific circumstances of the case, and it is not appropriate to determine rigid standards. In addition, in practice there is ambiguity in the identification of the “fraud” element as a prerequisite for the application of punitive damages stipulated in Article 55, Paragraph 1, of the Consumer Law. This article extends the identification of the stage of fraud occurrence and includes the operator’s fraud. The subjective state is determined to be intentional, and at the same time, when the operator’s non-disclosure reaches a serious level, the law can be determined as “fraud”.