Tourism stakeholders on the Spanish Mediterranean island of Mallorca have backed calls to take the national government to court over a new travel registration system they fear could be “very damaging” to the industry.
The Mallorca Hoteliers Federation and the Business Group of Balearic Travel Agencies (Aviba) agreed at a meeting last week in the island’s capital, Palma, to consider legal action if concerns about the new registration system are not addressed.
Designed to improve national security
The registration rules have been introduced by Spain’s Secretaría de Estado de Seguridad (State Secretariat for Security) to improve national security by updating “obsolete and useless” rules that have been in place since 1959. Responding to a changed security environment in which, according to the Ministry, “The greatest attacks on public safety are carried out by both terrorist activity and organised crime, in both cases with a marked transnational character,” the new registration system requires accommodation providers, including short term rental and Airbnb operators, to gather and share a new list of personal information from all visitors aged 14 or over. That list includes:
- Full name
- Gender
- Nationality
- Passport number
- Date of birth
- Home address
- Landline phone number (if you have one)
- Mobile phone number
- Email address
Hotel receptions are “not border posts”
But Spain’s National Federation of Hotels and Accommodation Providers (CEHAT) has already said the moves target the wrong people and that “real criminals” will find a way to get around them. It has also criticised the extra burden of administration and security work being placed on hospitality workers.
Jorge Marichal, CEHAT President said in a recent release that the measure “unloads its weight on ordinary travellers and generates a monumental administrative burden that falls on the employees of the accommodations, who are neither police officers nor security experts.” He went on to point out that: “Hotels are not police stations. Receptions are not border posts. And receptionists should not be interrogators trained in the secret services.”
Too much bureaucracy?
Marichal even went as far as to say the rules would ruin Spain’s reputation as a relaxed holiday destination. Airports and receptions would be overwhelmed by the additional paperwork, he said, and tourists “instead of remembering Spain as the country of sun, joy, gastronomy and culture, will remember it as the kingdom of the form.”
Now it appears business representatives on the Balearics have joined the chorus of concern. Pedro Fiol, the president of Aviba, told the meeting he hoped the Security Ministry would act to correct “errors” in the proposed registration system, but, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin, he warned that, “If it does not, we will have no choice but to resort to legal action.”
