Majorca hotels fear ‘very worrying’ strict rules for UK tourists could ‘breach’ EU law
Hotel chiefs in Majorca have slammed new requirements for travellers, including Brits, which come into force from October 1. Under the new rules, which are due to be introduced across Spain, visitors will have to provide their host with various details such as home addresses and contact details.
But the FEHM Majorca hotel federation has called for the government to review the requirements, saying that it poses “multiple problems” with growing concerns that it is “incompatible with EU law”. The federation held a meeting this week and urged the government to reconsider the strict rules.
The federation echoed the issues raised by CEHAT, the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation, of which it is a member. The Majorca Daily Bulletin reports that the federation claims the proposed regulations present “multiple problems both in its scope and in its application.”
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It says that hotels want to work with the ministry and ensure tourist security, however the new measures are being introduced “without prior dialogue” with the hotel sector. The federation said: “We are now faced with an imminent obligation that comes into force on 1 October and suffers from great difficulties of implementation because unofficial data is being demanded that is not available and the platform continues to fail.
“It is very worrying that repeated warnings of incompatibility with EU law are being ignored, that they persist in creating legal uncertainty, cause a huge administrative burden and the technological inadequacy of implementation is blatant.”
The federation “demanded” that the Ministry of the Interior amends the regulations and works with the tourism sector. CEHAT has claimed that the new Spanish regulations breach a 2022 ruling by the European Court of Justice that the collection of personal data of tourists must be restricted to what is strictly necessary.