British holidaymakers and hoteliers believe a new Spanish security law requiring tourists to log personal information will have minimal impact, despite fears over longer check-in queues and Big Brother type data gathering.
New rules mean hotels, rental properties, campsites and taxi firms in Spain must collect visitors’ details which will be sent to the Spanish government.
Madrid’s Ministry of the Interior says the new regulation, Royal Decree 933/2021, is needed to help in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.
Hotels already gathered some personal details from guests, but the law requires anyone over the age of 14 to provide information including their full name, gender, nationality, passport number, date of birth, address, phone number and email address.
Holidaymakers renting cars will also need to share their driving licence, payment information and GPS data, with the new rules sparking a backlash from parts of Spain’s tourist sector.
The Confederation of Spanish Hoteliers and Tourist Accommodation (Cehat) says the law, which came into effect on Monday, “violates people’s privacy” and have threatened legal action against Madrid’s central government.
But Ali Zartash-Lloyd, 62, who co-owns holiday accommodation rental firm Colours of Andalucia in Mijas with his wife, believes the regulations are “a lot of fuss being made over nothing” and won’t mean much change from existing measures.
“When you check in, even when you stay in a self-catering place, the agent that checks you in has to take a copy of your passport and register it with the police,” he told The i Paper.
“Even if you don’t tell them where you’re going, they will know, because we have registered you.
“So if you came and stayed at one of our properties and then you went to Sevilla and went to another property, they know, because your agent there or the hotel will check you in.”
Under the new rules, businesses are required to report the data daily and keep a digital record of the information for three years or risk fines up to €30,000 (£25,000).
David Wood, 59, from Bristol, checked in online for his hotel in Mallorca on Monday, the first day the new law came into effect.
A frequent traveller, he is flying to the Balearic island for four-day break on Thursday, but doesn’t believe the new rules will cause any problems.
“Yesterday, I had an email from the hotel asking me to complete their online registration or booking,” he said.
“They wanted a picture of my passport, which is standard, because you give them your passport when you check in any case. I’ve not got an issue with that whatsoever.
“And then they also wanted my address, but interestingly, they didn’t want my house number.
“They didn’t ask for any financial details. They didn’t ask for any bank details. That was it. So far as I was concerned, it was pretty much a standard checking procedure”.
Providing the details online took no more than five minutes, he said.
“I travel a lot. So it’s no big deal. It’s not information that I’ve never shared before, or anybody else for that matter,” Mr Wood added.
“I literally travel to a different country every month and this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked.”
Ken Barnsley, 65, and his partner Joanne Greenhalgh, 63, have run a small boutique hotel in Archidona, about an hour’s drive from Malaga, since relocating from Birmingham in 2021.
The Almohalla 51 hotel’s next customers are not expected until early in 2025, but he doesn’t expect visitors to face delays checking in and believes any impact will be “minimal”.
“As a hotel, we already have to take details of our clients and report them onto a central national database, as part of our responsibility under current regulations,” Mr Barnsley said.
“Hotels have had a long time to get used to this, and although they were implemented yesterday, it’s not hugely different from the information that we have to collect in any case.”
The hotel had recently seen a fall in the number of British travellers, and there were concerns that negative reports about the impact of the new rules could deter others from coming to Spain.
And while questions being raised about Big Brother data gathering were “reasonable”, he said, hotels were already having to log customers’ details with the police.
“We’ve travelled all over the world, and most hotels, when you arrive, you have to fill in a little form with the majority of these details included,” he said.
“Since we bought the hotel we’ve been having to give full passport details to the Guardia Civil.”
The new system has been launched during the off-season, giving hotels and accommodation providers time to get used to the requirements before next year’s peak travel period.
While some glitches were reported on Monday with the central government’s new web platform, hotels told Costa del Sol Hoteliers Association (Aehcos) the platform was now working without any issues.
But Ramón Estalella, the head of the country’s leading hotel association, Cehat, has cited concerns the regulation is an infringement on personal privacy.
He said: “We believe that companies are taking a very significant risk in requesting this data, transmitting this data and storing it for three years.
“We believe that this poses a huge risk for all purposes, especially for the protection of personal data, but at the same time we believe that the security of Spain is essential.”