The Internal Affairs Committee of the Spanish Senate has approved a motion presented by the People’s Party (PP)against the Traveler Registry, a system introduced by the Sánchez government that imposes new rules for collecting and transmitting tourist data. The opposition has strongly criticized the measure, calling it yet another example of the government’s “excessive control” and demanding its immediate repeal.
After several delays, the Traveler Registry, introduced by Royal Decree 933/2021, officially came into effect on December 2, 2024. This system requires accommodations, travel agencies, and car rental companies to collect and transmit detailed customer information to the Ministry of the Interior, including sensitive data such as travelers’ payment methods.
The measure has raised concerns regarding both data protection and its operational impact on the tourism sector. The enforcement of this regulation places an additional bureaucratic burden on tourism operators, who now must gather far more extensive client information than before, facing hefty fines in case of non-compliance.
Opposition criticism
In a statement released after the motion’s approval, the PP’s tourism spokesperson, Agustín Almodóbar, accused the government of implementing the decree without consulting tourism operators, ignoring their concerns, and causing “unprecedented chaos”. He described the initiative as “disproportionate and impossible to comply with”. According to Almodóbar, hotels, travel agencies, and car rental companies should not be turned into law enforcement agencies, and travelers should be assured that their data will not be misused.
The senator also highlighted that the tourism sector itself has labeled the decree a “disaster”, criticizing its lack of legal clarity and the absence of clear guidelines for its implementation. Furthermore, he recalled that the European Commission is currently investigating the new online booking control system, as it may violate EU data protection regulations.
Possible developments
The motion presented by the People’s Party has been reviewed and approved by the Internal Affairs Committee of the Senate. What happens next? The motion can be brought before the full Senate for further discussion and voting by all senators. If the motion is debated and approved in a plenary session, it will be sent to the government as a political recommendation, though it is not legally binding.
This means the government is not required to repeal or modify the Traveler Registry, but the Senate’s approval of a motion places significant political pressure on the executive to reconsider the regulation. The tourism sector is now waiting for further developments, hoping that this political initiative could lead to a potential abolition or at least a revision of the Traveler Registry.
Photo by Vojtech Okenka
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