The Spanish Tourist Office (UK) has clarified that UK travel agencies and tour operators won’t be required to supply data on their customers travelling to Spain.
The update comes amid confusion about customer data collection in line with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
The law does require hotels and car rental companies to gather customer data.
The updated decree law requires relevant companies to record traveller data on a web platform provided by the Ministry of the Interior.
The Spanish Tourist Office (UK) emphasised a registry for lodging and motor vehicle rentals is not a new initiative.
A registry for hotel stays has been for 65 years. and one for car rentals for 50 years.
These systems are merely being updated.
The new updated system only collects two more data fields than the previous system.
The update to the lodging and vehicle rental registry meets the obligations imposed by two laws in force in Spain, which is Article 45 of the Schengen Agreement and the Organic Law 4/2015.
The new registry applies to lodging businesses involved in lodging services, including hotels, hostels, guesthouses, apartments and other similar tourist accommodations.
A travel agency or tour operator in a source market such as the UK selling a package that includes hotel accommodation or vehicle rental in Spain is not required to register data on the platform.
This applies to both small agencies and large tour operators.
Only the relevant agency or intermediary based in Spain working with these source-market operators would be required to register the data.