New law is causing a stir: Spanish government: No more traveler data than before

New law is causing a stir: Spanish government: No more traveler data than before

The government’s plan caused great unrest in the tourism sector. Above all, hoteliers feared that it would take too much effort to collect even more data from their customers. Now the all-clear comes.

A planned registration law for tourists has caused a stir in the travel industry in Spain in view of the feared flood of additional required customer data. The Ministry of the Interior in Madrid has now made it clear: With the law, which is due to come into force on December 2nd, hoteliers or travel agencies do not have to request any more data from their customers than before, as the newspapers “El País” and “El Mundo” reported.

Previously there was a meeting between industry representatives from the Spanish business association CEOE and the department responsible for tourism under Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska. The ministry made it clear that in the future, accommodation, travel and rental car providers will not have to request more customer data than was previously the case – such as the name and passport or ID number.

Worry about data flood

The new law was passed for security reasons and its introduction was postponed several times. Entrepreneurs had interpreted it in such a way that querying, storing and forwarding further customer information such as telephone number, email address, form of payment and the family relationship of travelers in the case of minors would be absolutely necessary in the future. In addition to data protection concerns, critics primarily expressed concern that such a flood of data would be unmanageable and would not be queried in any other European country.

The controversial “Marlaska Decree” introduces measures aimed at improving public safety. This should also be achieved by regulating the registration and transmission of data from the tourism sector.

The decree states, among other things, that particular importance should be given to “the possibility of networking with police databases” in order “to improve the effectiveness in the prevention and investigation of terrorist offenses or those related to serious organized crime.”

Tourism accounts for almost 14 percent of economic output in Spain. In some regions this value is significantly higher. In Mallorca and the rest of the Balearic Islands it is around 35 percent. The number of visitors from abroad is growing. In the first eight months of the year, the record number of 64.3 million visitors was reached, the statistics agency INE in Madrid announced at the beginning of October.

Source: Stern

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