Tourism Law in Europe

9 PCM, stating that “[e] l titular del establecimiento de alojamiento estará obligado a prestar los servicios de alojamiento, proporcionando y manteniendo al cliente en el uso y disfrute pacífico de la habitación contratada durante el tiempo pactado ” 18 . This obligation will be understood to be fulfilled when the hotelier assigns the traveller the room for which the consent has been given, bearing in mind that, although it is usual to request a type of room (double, standard, suite, etc.), the contract will not be fulfilled when the guest's consent is given for a specific accommodation unit 19 . An example of this is the usual tourists from Northern Europe who spend the winters in hotel and extra-hotel establishments in the Spanish coastal areas, and mainly in the Canary Islands, who tend to always demand the same room. Another example of this is those people who demand the room where they spent their honeymoon years after their marriage. Clearly, in order to comply with the main obligation to provide the accommodation service, the host will have to allow the guest access to the establishment, although he may require the guest to offer a guarantee of conduct and payment, an aspect that is difficult to comply with when, nowadays, the appearance of the subject is not indicative of his possible behaviour in the establishment, and the guarantee of payment tries to be covered, sometimes without much success, through the request for a credit card that serves as a guarantee for a possible non-payment. The doctrine 20 has already pronounced on the requirement of this card, recognising the lack of legitimacy of the host to refuse the guest who refuses to provide his details, given the lack of legislative coverage of this custom, which is based solely and exclusively on commercial usage, but the truth is that in practice there does not seem to be any protection for the traveller who refuses to provide these details or, failing that, to pay for the service in advance, in which case he risks the hotelier refusing to provide it. However, it is possible to deny access to the traveller and even allow the host to legitimately expel him from the establishment and take action against him when he 18 The owner of the accommodation establishment shall be obliged to provide the accommodation services, providing and maintaining the client in the peaceful use and enjoyment of the contracted room for the agreed time (author’s translation). 19 PEREZ SERRANO, N. El contrato de hospedaje en su doble aspecto civil y mercantil , op . cit ., p. 182, points out that, once the obligation to provide a specific room has been accepted by the host, the guest has a perfect right to occupy it, without the offer of a different one, however similar it may be to the original, serving to terminate the contract. 20 Vid. AURIOLES MARTÍN, A. Introducción al Derecho Turístico , op . cit ., p. 80.