New hotel rules are being introduced in Spain — we are talking about additional “digitalization” and unnecessary documents that tourists will need when checking into hotels. Moreover, chaos and problems for tourists are expected — up to and including the leakage of personal data.
The point is that from October 1, anyone in Spain renting out housing or renting a car to tourists will have to fill out a traveler’s report. And it will require data that is not included in the usual form of identification. The new information will consist of payment methods, bank details, email addresses, and phone numbers.
However, the rules have infuriated the Spaniards themselves. Thus, the company Cehat filed a lawsuit against the new rules, stating: “The new rules establish new requirements for the registration of travelers staying in tourist establishments, as well as for the transfer of this data through a platform developed by the Ministry of the Interior. According to tour operators, this platform turned out to be extremely ineffective, which made it impossible to collect and transfer this data.”
The protesters added that the rules were approved three years ago, but were subsequently postponed twice so that hotels could prepare. “We are astonished by the insistence of those responsible at the Ministry of the Interior, led by Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaschi, to create chaos for the Ministry’s employees and threaten large fines and sanctions for all those who do not act by the new parameters, which we believe are unenforceable and illegal, and which will lead to the certain loss of confidential information about travelers and increased liability for unverifiable data,” they added.
The protesting travel industry stresses that hoteliers can’t collect and verify the authenticity of some of this data. This will lead to organizational chaos at reception, to the detriment of users, and will grossly violate the rules on data minimization and protection in the European directives.