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What Britons could be asked to prove when visiting Spain

Anne Hernández of Brexpats in Spain has been in conversation with UK authorities about the €100-a-day rule and other requirements that British visitors and tourists entering Spain can in theory be asked for by border officials.

Published: 10 May 2022 09:40 CEST

What Britons could be asked to prove when visiting Spain

If you're a third-country national, Spanish border officials are quite entitled to ask ‘What is your purpose for visiting Spain?' 'How long do you intend to stay in Spain?'(Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Although Spain has not yet implemented this nationally, recently some foot passengers have been surprised at the information being asked for by Spanish immigration officials at the border from Gibraltar and would be positively shocked if they were refused entry into Spain.

As a non EU member and not from one of the 26 Member States of the Schengen area, Britons entering Spain could well have certain requirements with which to comply:

– A valid passport or travel document. Your passport must be less than 10 years old on the day you enter (check the ‘date of issue’) and valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the expiry date). Also, check your passport is stamped if you enter or exit the Schengen area through Spain as a visitor

– A visa if you are subject to the Spanish visa regime

– Proof of accommodation. A document that shows where you will be staying during your time in Spain

– A return or round-trip ticket or proof of onward travel if you do not plan to return to your home country at the end of your stay in Spain

– Documents proving your purpose of entry

The 90 days in 180 days Schengen rule applies to third country nationals whether they are travelling for tourism purposes, visiting friends or family, in transit, on business, for medical reasons, for study or for cultural reasons, sports and film crews.

The border officials are quite entitled to ask: ‘What is your purpose for visiting Spain? How long do you intend to stay in Spain? Where are you going to stay in Spain? How are you going to financially support yourself during your time here in Spain?’ So, these questions have to be satisfied with proof.

There is no indication of specific criteria immigration officials use to determine whether to ask third-country nationals for this extra proof and seems to be at the discretion of each individual border official.

As stated earlier, these requirements have only been requested recently from some third-country foot passengers entering Spain via the Gibraltar border, but under the Schengen Border Code, Spain is entitled to implement these measures at any time.

What documents British tourists can in theory be asked prove when visiting Spain

1) Round-trip flight itinerary. A document that shows you have a booked flight, to enter and leave Spain. This document should specify flight numbers, dates, and your details

2) Proof of accommodation by means of a hotel reservation

3) Proof of sufficient financial means. A foreigner who seeks to enter the territory of Spain needs to attest to having at least €100 per day, with a minimum of €900 per person regardless of the intended duration of the stay

4) A personal letter of invitation which explains why you are visiting, with whom you are staying and for how long

As a tourist you will have proof of hotel/self catering accommodation booked and as a visitor to a friend or family member you might be asked for the letter of invitation but this depends on your reasons for visiting.

Some questions that remain are whether the €900 minimum per person applies also to minors or what proof of accommodation British tourists travelling in motorhomes would be asked to produce.

How can you prove your financial sufficiency?

– A personal bank statement indicating your financial movements (for at least the last 3 months)

– Credit card

– Cash

– Traveller’s cheques

– Payslips

– Proof of employment

– Supporting document to attest sponsor’s readiness to cover your expenses during your stay

– Proof of prepaid accommodation

– Document about private accommodation

– Proof of prepaid transport

Means of subsistence, is regulated by the Regulation (Ec) No 810/2009 of The European Parliament and of The Council of 13 July 2009, establishing a Community Code on Visas also known as “Visa Code” Article 14(c).

Why is it €100 a day per day for tourists in Spain?

According to Article 5(3) of the Schengen Border Code: “means of subsistence shall be assessed in accordance with the duration and the purpose of the stay and by reference to average prices in the Member State(s)concerned for board and lodging in budget accommodation, multiplied by the number of days stayed.”

Invitation letter

If you are staying with a friend or family member that person will effectively be responsible for you financially and will guarantee that you do not overstay the 90 days and must invite you in writing to stay with them for a given duration.

Overstaying

Should you be tempted to stay longer than the permitted 90 days in any 180 days it could mean a fine will be imposed, you could be deported or even banned from entering the Schengen Zone for a specific amount of time.

There is not a common policy for all Schengen Member States and Spain has not, as yet, imposed such penalties but could do so at any time. Germany imposes the strictest immigration laws and Greece applies the highest fines for overstaying.

Short-stay Schengen visa extensions are permitted by the regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (EC) No. 810/2009 of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Journal of Laws of the EU of 2009 L243/1) but you must have a strong valid reason.

According to the Schengen visa policy, acceptable reasons to extend a Schengen short-stay visa are only the following – Late Entry, Humanitarian Reasons, Force Majeure, Important Personal Reasons.

There are differences in requirements between the reasons for entering and Brexpats in Spain International can help you with all these requirements – visas, competitive quotes for approved insurance via one of our sponsors, letters of invitation and visa extensions.

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Good tourist, bad tourist: How to travel responsibly in Spain

Barcelona resident David Mar doesn’t travel, but he thinks about tourism every day.

Tourists crowd the buses — essential for movement in a hilly neighbourhood like his. They leave trash for residents to discover in the morning. They shout and sing at night and wander drunkenly through the residential streets, ambling into backyards and pulling down laundry on clotheslines.

“It’s a disturbance that goes from when you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night,” he told The Local Spain. “You don’t feel welcome in your own neighbourhood.”

Mar lives in Turó de la Rovira, on a 262-metre hill that towers over the city.

A viewpoint atop the hill called Los Bunkers de Carmel has gone viral on TikTok for its sweeping city views, bringing hordes of tourists to come drink wine, watch the sunset, and sometimes party into the early morning.

But for the residents of the surrounding Carmel neighbourhood — among Barcelona’s poorest — the consequences of this tourist explosion have been severe.

Mar was involved in a physical altercation with a group of four Australians, after he confronted them for tipping over parked motorcycles.

And last June a 76 year-old man was assaulted by a group of seven English-speaking youths after he tried to stop them from jumping a fence that had been put up around the Bunkers.

Such events are commonplace in Carmel, Mar says, with the post-pandemic massification of tourism provoking an unstoppable flow of Instagram-like-hungry travellers, fuelled by an increasingly lucrative industry whose interests often conflict with those of local residents.

“It collides directly with the most basic rights of those who live here,” Mar says. “Our right to housing, our right to transportation, our right to rest peacefully.”

With some 1.3 billion international arrivals globally in 2023, more people are travelling for pleasure than ever before in human history.

But as excessive crowds stress infrastructure and locals find themselves pushed out of their own communities, prevailing attitudes towards travel must be reconsidered if global tourism is to continue growing sustainably.

“Tourism isn’t a right, it’s a decision that you make,” Mar says. “And if you do it, you must be aware of the consequences it can generate.”

A couple uses a selfie stick to take a picture next to a banner warning tourists on drought alert in Catalonia, near Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Empathy abroad

Bartolomé Deyá Tortella, a researcher and the Dean of Tourism Faculty at the University of the Balearic Islands, says few tourists consider such consequences.

Instead, they embrace their inner hedonist and focus their vacation time on maximum pleasure for minimum price. This mindset might cause a tourist to forget their values and do things they’d never do at home.

“We all become capitalists when we practice tourism,” Deyá told The Local. “You think, ‘I paid for this, I’m on vacation, I’m having my moment of pleasure, I worked the whole year for it.”

Such thinking could explain why someone might respect quiet hours in their own neighbourhoods, but shout drunkenly in the streets late at night while on vacation.

Or why on a trip to Mallorca, where Deyá lives and works, a tourist might feel compelled to take a 10-minute shower — despite the water-stressed Mediterranean island’s near-drought conditions — while residents routinely shower in a minute or less.

Failure to consider saving water or respecting quiet hours comes down to lack of empathy, Deyá says, and our tendency to other the people whose communities we enter while traveling.

“Act as if you were in your own home,” he says. “If when you’re in your own city you don’t shout in the street because you know your neighbours are sleeping, why do it when you’re traveling?”

Social sustainability

Much has been said about environmental sustainability, but it’s easy to forget the social impacts of travel; how our interactions with local people and economies can change that society.

“When every one of us travels, it implies that the places where we came from are transformed, the places we pass through are transformed, and obviously, so are the places we arrive to,” Manuel de la Calle Vaquero, Vicedean of the Faculty of Commerce and Tourism at Complutense University of Madrid, told The Local Spain.

With this in mind, the most sustainable way to travel is by using one’s presence to positively impact the local community.

Or in other words, to leave a place better than you found it.

“When you jump on a plane, it’s important to make sure that trip counts for something positive,” says Justin Francis, founder of Responsible Travel, a holiday company that collaborates with local partners to plan socially and environmentally sustainable vacations.

“I advise people to fly less, keep short trips flight-free – and, when you do fly, stay in a place longer and travel in a way that does as much good as possible,” Francis says.

Anti-gentrification banners addressing were already hanging from balconies in Barcelona back in 2017. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Neighbourhood colonisers

One of the most significant ways in which tourism can alter the social landscape is through accommodation.

Not long ago, tourists and residents in Spain did not typically mix, with tourists sticking near their hotels, rarely straying into residential zones, Deyá says.

But today’s tourist has matured, and now expects novelty; an “authentic” experience that they can convince themselves distinguishes them from the thousands of other tourists expecting the same.

Nowadays they live among residents, in apartments instead of hotels, utilizing short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, which has led to the dissolution of boundaries between a city’s tourist and local zones.

Vaquero describes this new kind of tourist as the “anti-tourism” tourist, in the sense that they’re not interested in the sort of tourism promoted by governments and travel agencies, but instead consider themselves the explorers of new “authentic” destinations outside the typical tourist sphere.

“The one who wants to leave the traditional tourist circuit and supposedly goes looking for ‘authentic’ neighbourhoods — that tourist is obviously the coloniser,” Vaquero says.

The boom in short-term vacation rentals has led to what’s been dubbed the “Airbnb effect” in neighbourhoods worldwide, in which residents are slowly replaced by a constant flux of tourists. For landlords, vacation rentals can be far more lucrative than renting to residents, thus incentivizing them to evict long-term tenants in order to list their properties on Airbnb.

This is exactly what happened to Emanuele Dal Carlo. His landlord didn’t want to renew the lease on his small Venice apartment because they could make more renting it out on Airbnb. Like so many other Venetians, Dal Carlo had to move to the mainland.

To better understand the cultural erosion he saw happening to his city as a result of Airbnb, Dal Carlo enlisted the help of researchers to conduct a study, through which he discovered only 2,000 of the 3,300 Airbnbs in the city were registered with the government, and many were rented by foreign hosts with zero connection to Venice.

This means that much of the money tourists spend on accommodation never lands on the ground, thus eliminating any potential benefit to the local economy.

“What’s wrong is that the money available from tourism is not fairly distributed between workers and residents,” Dal Carlo says.

Dal Carlo now runs Fairbnb, an ethical Airbnb alternative which promotes “community-powered tourism.” Hosts are certified local, and the platform fees are put directly towards a social project in the local community, like food redistribution or sustainable energy initiatives.

As a tourist, the best way to avoid feeding the problem is by avoiding short term rentals when possible, Dal Carlo says, and instead booking accommodations with local businesses, like small independent hotels or traditional bed and breakfasts.

And if you absolutely must use Airbnb, Dal Carlo suggests booking with local hosts.

“If you’re traveling to Venice and your host is from Finland, ask yourself some questions,” he says.

An elderly local man on crutches waits to cross as a group of tourists using Segways squeeze by and into the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)

Whose fault?

In Spain, anti-tourism protests have crescendoed in recent weeks. The travel industry, it seems, has grown beyond its means, and locals are taking note.

To some degree, the problem can be traced to poor planning on the part of local governments and the unchecked expansion of algorithmic platforms like Airbnb.

Deyá points out that many government entities in Spain have welcomed tourist money, pursuing marketing campaigns without investing in adequate preparation.

“Tourism is the typical sector where many governments say, ‘ok, let’s leave it, because this works. Don’t touch it,’” Deyá says. “But there’s been no planning, there’s been no strategy.”

Back in Barcelona, the city’s public transport authority was involved in the promotion of the Carmel bunkers through its Bus Turistic webpage, encouraging tourists to come see the “spectacular views over Barcelona.”

The promotion was taken down on April 16th after continued anti-tourism protests from the Turó de la Rovira neighbourhood council, of which Mar is a member.

But as is the case with so many industries in a crowded world full of contradictions, the individual cannot be absolved of all responsibility, as one’s choice to participate in harmful systems enables their continuation.

No law or tourist tax will compel tourists to act with empathy, and the absence of such regulations should not be used to justify one’s bad behaviour abroad.

“The problem is that we’re hypocrites, and we think that it’s someone else who has to solve the problem,” Deyá says.

Mar, who’s never been much of a traveller himself, is no longer interested in traveling internationally after seeing what tourism has done to his city.

“So much of my city has become inhospitable for residents,” he says. “Because we’re truly suffering from it here in Barcelona, the concept of tourism disgusts me more and more.”

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