Tourist accommodation providers continue to slam the 40 pieces of information they have to collect from each guest in Spain
Cehat represents hotels, tourist flats, campsites, resorts, spas, and other providers through 51 provincial, regional and local associations
Six months after the entry into force of the 'Marlaska decree', which mandates that hotels and tourist platforms collect and transmit significantly more guest data to authorities, hoteliers are once again opposing this regulation. The regulation named after the minister of the interior requires more than 40 pieces of information to be collected in order to register a guest. The sector's employers' association in Spain (Cehat) is calling on the government to urgently draw up a ministerial order or to repeal this registration system, which the Ministry of the Interior implemented at the beginning of last December with Royal Decree 933/2021. According to hoteliers, there are doubts about the legality of the collection, custody and transmission of data. In addition, this practice in Spain does not comply with European regulations on the free movement of travellers and data protection.
Cehat president Jorge Marichal criticises the Ministry of the Interior for not paying attention to the sector's requests and not listening to European representatives. According to Marichal, the government "increases the administrative processes for those who have always shown their sincere attitude of collaboration".
Cehat represents the tourist accommodation sector in Spain, including hotels, tourist flats, campsites, resorts, spas, and other categories through 51 provincial, regional and local associations. According to it, the Royal Decree violates EU law and data protection regulations. Cehat officials say that they have been meeting with the Ministry of the Interior for more than three years, with no contact for the last ten months and without having seen any requested changes. "This has created great confusion in the sector and, on many occasions, significant discomfort among our visitors and the tour operators and travel agencies that are in direct contact with foreign demand," Cehat states.
Furthermore, in the last two years, European authorities have shown growing concern in meetings held with tourism associations representing the sector before the European Commission (EC) and the Parliament. Associations have been seeking advice from the Commission in order to understand whether the Spanish regulation complies with European legislation, seeing as the practices of the Peninsula are not applied "in any other country in the EU". Cehat says that legal reports have pointed to a lack of proportionality and a violation of the principle of data minimisation. This, at the same time, has created problems for tour operators, travel agencies and small and medium-size enterprises, which are faced with the dilemma of whether to comply with national or European legislation.
Moreover, the European Commission has recently responded, making it clear that any data collection must comply with EU directive 2016/680 on the processing of personal data for security purposes. Since then, the Commission has reportedly been in active dialogue with Spanish authorities. It has concluded that the exact definition of the scope of the obligations for accommodation companies, online platforms and car rental companies is not defined in the national regulation and will be specified in the ministerial order that is being worked on. The Commission has confirmed that the first draft sent to them by Spain many months ago is currently awaiting the final version before a decision is made.
According to hoteliers, the Ministry of the Interior undertook to draw up the ministerial order before the entry into force of the Royal Decree in November 2024. It then made a public and firm commitment to draw it up in January 2025, subsequently failing to do so. Cehat states that "these repeated failures by the ministry demonstrate once again the inappropriateness of imposing obligations of this nature on the country's main industry. It is necessary, as a matter of urgency, to restore common sense in the form of a simple, proportionate rule, in line with the law, which allows the objectives of maintaining and increasing safety in Spain to be met".
