Travellers to Spain face delays and chaos, with ‘strictest regulations in Europe’

British visitors arriving in Spain from Monday face travel chaos, tourist operators warned, as they will be forced to supply a raft of extra details to check into hotels or hire cars.

At present, hotels in Spain ask guests for their passport details or identity cards.

But in what are thought to be the strictest rules in the European Union, the new Spanish regulations demand that businesses collect up to 43 pieces of data from tourists.

These can include contact details, family relationships, bank card information and home addresses.

These must be supplied when a holidaymaker books a hotel room or hires a car, perhaps months before travelling, then again when they arrive in Spain.

Holidaymakers could face long delays, particularly during high season in the summer when they must supply new information, which must then be uploaded on to a platform for sharing with security forces in what has been likened to “Big Brother” by travel associations in Spain and across Europe.

Tourist sector companies which fail to comply could face fines of €30,000 (£25,000).

Tour operators, holiday rental platforms and car rental companies must gather this extra data.

Catiana Tur, director of Acave, one of the largest travel agencies’ associations in Spain, said the regulations seemed “just like Big Brother”.

“Now all people must do is give their passport at a hotel. But they will have to supply all this new information about how they paid for it, their address, their email address etc,” she told i.

“These will be the strictest regulations in Europe. No other country has asked for regulations like this. It is going to cause long delays and might even put people off.”

The Spanish government said the new regulations were necessary to help the police track organised crime gangs and terrorists.

Cehat, Spain’s largest hoteliers’ association, has launched a legal challenge against the rules.

“People who come to Spain want to enjoy their holidays not get bogged down in intrusive administration which put their privacy at risk,” Jorge Marichal, president of Cehat, told i.

“This doesn’t just create uncertainty for tourists and in the industry, but it puts our reputation as a tourist destination at risk.”

Cehat noted that the tourism sector contributes 12 per cent of Spain’s GDP.

The organisation said it would work with the government to help nationality security but said the rules force companies to ask for personal information that is incompatible with the European Union’s data protection legislation.

The introduction of the decree has been delayed several times over the past three years, but tourism associations say they have only had one meeting with the Spanish government to discuss their objections.

Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spanish interior minister, said in October that the new rules “balanced all considerations, including both the right to privacy as well as the need to protect the security of society as a whole”.

Some 17.2 million Britons travelled to Spain on holiday last year, making them the largest group of visitors by nationality.