Remailing in Spain.
Private postal operators. The tourist postcards


Since the mid 1990s and during the early years of this century, some private postal companies, taking advantage of the early beginnings of the European postal market liberalization, built collecting networks at different tourist areas in Spain, for internationally destined postcards and their remailing from other countries. Postal law 24/1998, and the complaints and legal action taken by Spain’s – Correos, who considered that these companies offered postal services, solely reserved for the national postal operator, then stopped most of these projects.

This interesting chapter of Spanish postal history has been examined in the long study appearing on this website - the unpublished monograph on remailing in Spain, before the liberalization of the postal market, which focuses mainly on tourist mail remailed by international private postal operators. The general index of this study can be found at the end of this page, with the link to its main sections.
An extract of this study was also published, at the end of 2011, in the first special edition of the publication VARIABLE.

After some postponements, the European Parliament approved the Third Postal Directive, setting December 31st 2010 as the deadline for the abolition of postal monopolies and the full liberalization of postal services in the European Union, including Spain. This meant that from January 1st 2011, in accordance with law 43/2010, most of the services, once reserved for Correos, were now open to competition, and any national or international operator could freely provide postal services in Spain. Thus, a new phase in postal history was opened, and which were and will be studied in articles published on our website and in the quarterly publication VARIABLE.

We hope that this large study, which is continuously updated, will serve to spread knowledge of this interesting and unknown chapter of recent postal history of Spain - the key to understanding the transformation that is happening to the mail services in recent years, and as a starting point and reference for new discoveries and postal research of this period.


REMAILING OF THE TOURIST MAIL IN SPAIN BEFORE THE LIBERALIZATION OF THE POSTAL MARKET
(Extract published in the special edition of VARIABLE)
Introduction
The terminal dues

Remailing
Remailing in Spain. The tourist postcards
Background. Spanish Post Correos - Postage meters and special issues
The remail of tourist postcards
Private postal operators before the postal liberalization
DHL - WorldMail

Global Mail
I.F.C.C. - International First Class Courier, S.L.
Mail Boxes Etc. (MBE)
MRW
Nordic Mail AB
Offex Easimail
TNT (Mailfast & Spring Global Mail)
Total Postal
ViaPostal
The present and future (2011)

The Unisellos by UNIPOST
(also published in VARIABLE 7)

POSTAL OPERATORS IN SPAIN FROM 2011.
THE TOURIST MAIL
(Articles also published in VARIABLE 26, 30, 31, 32 & 33)
Background
The tourist mail
CORREOS and the 'canal turístico'
EASY POST - International Post Service
Swiss Post International (in preparation)
ByPost - Teatro de Operaciones, S.L.
EXPRESS POSTAL S.L. (Sun Post International Post Services, City Post International Post Services y El Correu Català International Post Service)
(in preparation)







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This page was created in July 2009 a
nd last updated:  10.08.14 . English edition last rewritten by S. Goodman (23.08.2013)