HOTELIERS in the Valencian Community say a new computerised system to register guests is driving them mad and will cause serious problems during the tourist high season.
The Benidorm-based Hosbec hotel association covering the whole region has slammed the new law introduced last December by the Ministry of the Interior.
It has called for urgent changes, saying the online registration platform needs an urgent overhaul.
BENIDORM HOTEL RECEPTION
A Hosbec statement said: “This puts us in limbo both technologically and legally, greatly complicating registration for hotels.”
“Spain is the only country in Europe in which a mandatory registration of all customers staying in tourist accommodation establishments is carried out,” it added.
Guests have to provide personal details including details of addresses, phone numbers, and emails which Hosbec claims ‘may violate the personal data protection’.
The measure was introduced to combat possible terrorist threats but has been criticised for smacking of a ‘Big Brother’ initiative.
Hosbec claims the online system is simply not working with multiple crashes reported- causing delays to check-ins.
“This is causing headaches to the hotel sector since its implementation: a technological platform that does not work and does not comply with legal requirements, data that is often impossible to collect, an unbearable responsibility because the law makes establishments responsible for the accuracy of the data collected,” Hosbec stated.
It also reported that hotels are getting messages ‘of a coercive nature’ from the government that are ‘threatening them with heavy sanctions’ if the correct information about guests is not supplied.
Hosbec president, Fede Fuster, said: “The hotel sector still does not find sense or usefulness in introducing such a system.”
“It is essential that authorities take urgent measures to correct these problems,” he added.
Fuster has received backing from Valencia’s Tourism Minister, Marian Cano, who has demanded the government make changes to ‘avoid damage to the Valencian tourism sector which is already feeling its impact’.
Cano stated that urgent meetings have been requested with the Ministry of the Interior to resolve the ‘real problem’ that registrations are causing.
