The Chief Executive of the Palma-based Melia hotel Group, Gabriel Escarrer, has slammed the new "Big Brother" hotel registration system in Spain as being a "disaster" and "faretul." Earlier this month hotels and apartment complexes were ordered to demand far more personal details from guests on check-in as part of a new security measure.
But hoteliers are furious demanding that it causes far more paperwork for their staff and could break guest privacy rules. The hoteliers are demanding that the new measure either be "watered down" or "withdrawn."
Hoteliers have said that there are fears that it could make people think twice about booking a hotel because of all the additional information which they have to provide.
So far their complaints have fallen on deaf ears with the Spanish government saying that the increased measures are needed for security reasons. They claim that hundreds of wanted criminals had been brought to justice as a result of the new measures.
There are fears that there could be even more complaints from guests once the busy summer season gets underway.
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Having just booked a hotel in Madrid and asked to check in online and not wanting to spend thirty minutes uploading photos front and rear of our families resident cards plus all the other details,which are already on the cards , I respectfully declined and let the hotel do the work.hopefully they’ll get the message and press the government for a change.
This is a DATA scrape , nothing to do with security , everything to do with control and attaching a social credit score to plebs . I pray my very sensitive personal data will be secured properly and not stolen , sold or used to rob me . And the nothing to hide , nothing to fear brigade can do one !
PSOE love to collect our data....
Jason, is there anything you won’t do to get down on your knees and prostrate yourself before the mighty hotelier group? Yes, I know that your income depends solely on their advertising on this platform but, under your editorship, the MDB’s Raison D’etre has become merely two-fold; as a mouthpiece for the tourism lobby, and a Poundland celebrity gossip magazine. To be honest, I rarely visit here anymore. I find your sister stablemate Ultima Hora far more news-based. In fact, it is from them that you glean most of your content - although often a day late, and a dollar short, as our American cousins would say.
I am not sure that wanted criminals tend to use their real names when checking into hotels. They are more likely to use pseudonyms, such as 'Hamburglar', 'Raffles the Gentleman Thief', or 'Osama Bin Laden', in order to evade detection.