The SES Accommodations of the Ministry of the Interior platform has collapsed this Monday, on its first day of mandatory registration, which prevents the introduction of data, according to the Acave association of travel agencies.
In a statement, Acave denounces that in a "procedure already chaotic in itself", travel agencies also have to work with at least three different platforms", depending on where the contracted services are provided, and that these are presenting "many technical errors".
Meanwhile, the Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies (CEAV) has once again asked the Government to exclude them from the traveler registration system that begins this Monday, considering that "it puts at risk the favorable evolution that the tourism industry is having, with the impact that this may have on the Spanish economy".
In an open letter addressed to the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, the executive committee of CEAV calls on them to a "reflection that leads to the opening of a real, loyal, sincere and effective dialogue that allows to stop a fact that can lead to a very serious damage of national scope, beyond what it is already causing for Spanish travel agencies".
Travel agencies reiterate in their letter the arguments that they have been making in recent years to be exonerated from this rule and accuse the Government of demonstrating a "flagrant ignorance" of their operations and a "manifest disinterest in alleviating it".
Among other reasons, they point out that they do not know of any security problem that justifies that they must register the numerous data that is required of travelers, that no country in the environment has arranged anything similar and that it can even "endanger their own security in the face of a cybercrime that, sadly, is advancing by leaps and bounds".
In their letter, they emphasize that their exclusion would avoid an "unnecessary duplication" of data communication to the forces and security bodies and in the "serious damage" that this obligation will entail for a sector composed mostly of SMEs and micro-enterprises, many of them without technological adaptation capacity and that cannot assume the "high operational and administrative cost that it entails".
"Our message is clear; not exempting travel agencies and tour operators puts tourism activity at risk, particularly international tourism", they warn.
In this regard, they assure that several tour operators, especially European ones, are "focusing their attention on competing destinations in Spain" in the face of the rejection that this issue is having in their respective countries and regret that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has not responded to the letter they sent him with their proposals.
