by As the rain fell (and helped sustain) our pleasant green earth this week, even the most intelligent people recoiled at the wretched idea of staying. An election in early July means our politicians won’t even have to pretend to lead the way, leaving them to enjoy a freezing English holiday (although Gordon Brown didn’t strike me as a tanner and probably tasted it his holidays in Keswick) .
So, I could almost feel like booking.com under the weight of holiday bookings. A week or two of guaranteed heat in the event, a bit of costa del blue sky, a nice Spanish conservatory.
But not so fast you fancy a beaver holiday, desperate for sun, sand and sangria. For the authorities in some of our beloved holiday destinations British tourists are in their sights. Okay, so maybe you don’t think this is all about you, your villa in the hills of Ibiza, or you, your fancy two weeks at a hotel in Palma Old Town.
Because the Balearic authorities are telling our colleagues apart because, this month, new restrictions are coming into effect. In fact, there is a whole range of regulations that are guaranteed to put a frightener, or indeed a dampener, on the more lively minds of British tourists.
Smoking is prohibited on some beaches, all hotels in Magaluf, El Arenal, Playa de Palma and San Antonio are to limit guests to six alcoholic drinks per day when some restaurants are part of a comprehensive agreement, yes ban on football shirts at some restaurants. , strapless vest tops and swimwear, and many restaurants in Majorca require credit card details when booking. But the strictest regulations include a ban on the sale of alcohol in shops between 9.30pm and 8am and a ban on party boats sailing within one nautical mile of the towns of Llucmajor, Palma, Magaluf and San Antonio.
All of them, of course, completely destroy the heart and soul of a proper holiday in the Balearics. Because when one books a holiday to, say, Ibiza, what one has in mind is an all-inclusive deal with unlimited booze, then, clad in one’s team strip, delivering some good old party football singing and exchange of verbal abuse i. like O Beach Club, some random last minute restaurant decisions and then a few fags on the beach. And the whole point of a drunken cruise is the drunken disembarkation and subsequent home invasion preferably when the boating bullies raid a bar where the hen party is in full swing.
But the local government has called time on what it calls “excess tourism” and is spending £13.7 million on enforcing these restrictions; security, audits and marketing crackdown.
However, it was these legends that built Ibiza. We may have watched in amusement as reality TV series portrayed the party and nightlife scene. Words like Pacha (the name of Ibiza’s most famous club) became an expression of wild hedonism; DJs like Carl Cox and David Guetta were legends on the scene, which left too much to be desired. It was in Ibiza that Pete Tong went all out.
Documentaries and other fictional series such as Netflix’s White Lines they acted as great marketing for the Balearics, at no cost to the Spanish tourism board. And the restaurants, bars, clubs and boats that followed filled with Brits trying to emulate those wild times and get hold of the “Ibeefa” spirit.
But now, it’s thank you but no thanks. We (and I use that “we” in the broadest sense because they are our colleagues, our fellow tax payers) have filled their pockets and now we can get away with it.
And where will that leave the Balearics, the property developers, the bar owners and the greedy Spanish spivs who eagerly spread a load of concrete all over the small fishing village of San Antonio? As the laws are enforced with ultra-local precision, and our vacationers will surely find new places to flash their cash and show off their torsos, will those ugly apartments and hotels breeze block, those places built to accommodate a little sleep and little else. , be soon empty echo caves?
Jaime Martínez, the mayor of Palma, has said that he wants to “correct uncivil attitudes”. But the problem is that these places were built to serve the seafaring crowds. Who does he think will want to stay in those festive flats now? The rich middle classes are already happily sipping imported French rosé, Chateau Minuty by the bucket load, at the expensive and relaxed restaurants in Playa d’en Bossa, at the open kitchens at the height of Santa Eulalia and even better at the Sa Capella restaurant , where you can tuck into a tender shoulder of lamb while wondering how far away San Antonio is as it glides down quietly into the sunset.
It is likely that the Balearic authorities went on a field trip to Wales to consult with their colleagues handling tourists. It was there that the British Government turned what was once a glorious British aspiration into the devil incarnate: it made the term “second home” a dirty word. One Gwynedd councilor said the second house was “immoral”. The North Wales local government has managed to convince people that the English who loved the area so much were to blame for their lack, failure to tackle poverty, NHS waiting lists, bad -education and lack of housing. to some extent, that they bought second homes to fully commit to the idea.
So after investing in the local economy, spending money in bars and hotels and restaurants, putting money in the hands of local builders, plumbers and electricians as they built these houses, the local government then settled them their solutions, demonize them and ask for them. to clear out. The British want the wealth but then they insist on the means to attract it and use the worst characteristics of nationalism to achieve it.
The Cornish followed suit, sharing a nationalist fervor that suggests they too want independence, border checks, their own currency (payments in Yargs, after their nettle-wrapped cheese) as well as full culinary control. on those awful pastas. The authorities encourage ugly, anti-second home graffiti and the Cornholes have chosen to name and shame one of our nation’s most famous chefs, a man who has relentlessly paraded British values of food quality and precision around the world . Gordon Ramsay was now nothing but the owner of a demonic second home. And therefore the Balearic authorities deploy the same strategy.
Now I don’t like our bullies, but what I don’t like more is the hypocrisy of those who have benefited from them and are now being beastly to my fellow Britons.
If it weren’t for those beers, your coast would still be just an uninhabited strip of scrubby wasteland. Nice for the rich whose villas have a view of it from up high but not so great for working people. As the common saying goes in Spanish: es más vale pájaro en mano, que ciento volando.
