Germany is to abolish the requirement for domestic hotel guests to fill in a registration form after lobbying from business travel association VDR.

VDR has been calling for these hotel forms, which require guests to provide personal details at check-in, to be axed for a “long time”, and the federal government has finally decided to abolish them as part of a wider campaign to reduce bureaucracy in Germany.

The German government had previously been looking to digitise the paper forms but now will scrap them completely for German citizens. However, the forms will still have to be filled in by international guests staying at German hotels.

VDR’s vice president Inge Pirner welcomed the government’s decision to axe the hotel forms, which came after the association had written to state secretaries calling for the move.

“We are particularly pleased about the federal government’s agreement – especially in the interests of business travellers, for whom it would be a great relief in the future,” said Pirner.