Nights On The Tiles

The truth that dare not speak its name.

A survey – yes, another one – finds that 80% of Brits between the ages of 16 and 35 come to Mallorca for one reason: nightlife. Well, not just one reason. There’s also the matter of cheap booze. Two reasons then. You can add the other ones; they’re not so difficult to figure out. Three reasons. No, four. Four reasons. No one expects the Spanish immoderation.

The same survey discovers, disquietingly, that 22% of Brits (female, one assumes) have in some way been sexually accosted while on holiday in Mallorca. I make no comment, other than that it comes as no surprise. Nor does the revelation that 71% are drunk for half the time, albeit that this seems on the low side.

You feel that behind these findings there is the unstated sound of self-deflecting  and holier-than-thou disgust. You wonder quite what motivates Spanish surveys into the behaviour of British (and also, it must be added, German) youth. It’s as though a Philistine pursuit of hedonistic nightlifing, too much alcohol and sex are reserved for the marauding hordes of northern Europe. It is, of course, far from the truth.

Barely audible but barely undisguised though this disgust may be, it is highly vocal compared with the truth that dare not be spoken. It is the truth that, for Brit and German youth – and older others whom tourism grandees might prefer to think have other things on their minds – going out at night and drinking are very important.

Getting off their faces and getting laid may be more the preserve of the younger end of the tourism masses – the younger end formerly known as the 18-30 crowd, now younger and older – but there was another survey, one that came out last summer, which found something very similar to this latest one. Of 3,000 tourists – of different ages – this reported that 80% of Brits (the good old 80% again) go to a night bar, club or disco on five or more nights during their stay. Nightlife is not just for the young, and that survey proved the point.

The truth that dare not speak its name is that for the great majority of tourists the priority is not figuring out which damn cell Chopin did or didn’t live in; it is not admiring the interior of Palma Cathedral; it is not scrutinising some dust and bits of old stone at the excavations of Alcúdia’s Roman town. It is going out. On the razz. On the lash. On the tiles. It is karaoke, trib acts. End of. It is into the wee small hours with a thumping musical accompaniment and next morning’s thumping head. End of. Culture is the trip to the market. Excursions are to Pirates. End of. The priority is enjoying yourself. Having fun. It is what, for many, many tourists, holidays are about.

I said the other day that a mistake is made in referring to the “tourism market”, as though it were one unified body of humanity. The other mistake is in referring to tourists as tourists. They are holidaymakers. There is a difference in terms of emphasis. One implies going out and having a good time, having a laugh, having some bevvies. I leave you to conclude which one.

The truth that dare not speak its name is that Mallorca has forgotten that people come on holiday. Consequently, the mindset, when it comes, for example, to promotion, is one quite removed from the experiences, the wishes, the motivations of great numbers of holidaymakers, the hoi polloi of the current-day Hi-de-Hi transported to the sun. And this isn’t just the “yoof”. Anything but.

This survey will be used as a stick with which to beat the drunkard Brit generation, as though such a thing had not previously existed. I can testify to the fact that it did. But it should be looked at more objectively. Combined with the other survey, it says much about what Mallorca represents. This may not be what tourism officialdom would like to think it represents, but it is. This may not be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth where Mallorca’s tourism is concerned, but it is a truth nevertheless. Just that they don’t want to speak it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All Night Long: Tourists and nightlife

In “Ultima Hora” yesterday was a report on a survey into nightlife and its “quality” in the Balearics. What is extraordinary about the findings of this survey is not that tourists go to night bars and clubs, but that quite so many do and quite so often.

While the survey, conducted on behalf of the ministry of health and consumption (as in the consumer as opposed to its meaning TB), will lead to implications for matters such as safety and alcohol and drug abuse, what seems truly significant is that over 80% of Brits and over 70% of Germans who come to Mallorca go to a night bar on five or more nights during their stay.

The report is not clear as to which resorts these findings apply to, and one might express some scepticism as to the exact definition of a night bar or club, but assuming this to mean places that are open well into the morning then the findings really are significant. They are significant for different reasons. One, they run counter to a general image of Mallorca as a predominantly “family” destination. Two, they potentially shatter the notion of Mallorca as a destination for so-called alternative tourism; it is hard to reconcile night birds with bird-watchers, for example. Three, they confirm what anyone with an ounce of understanding knows – that for many tourists, nightlife (meaning after midnight) is an important aspect of the holiday mix, despite attempts to neuter it through measures such as terrace curfews.

It is certainly difficult to reconcile the family nature of the Mallorcan holiday with the proclivity to partake in late-night entertainment. Perhaps babysitting services are enjoying boom times, or perhaps there are a lot of elderly relatives who are brought along for this very reason. Not that the elderly are not themselves necessarily out late; the report makes no specific mention of age.

While nightlife is most obviously associated with Magaluf and Palma, it is not as though it doesn’t exist elsewhere; quite the contrary. Alcúdia and Can Picafort are both well-represented in this regard. Puerto Pollensa may not be the night centre it was many years ago, but it still has quite a bit of nightlife, despite the fact that some might prefer to portray the resort as quiet and only family-oriented, which is a fallacy.

If the survey had found that tourists went out on the town once or twice during a stay, then the findings wouldn’t be particularly revealing. But five or more times is a very different scale. Though not a survey under the auspices of the tourism ministry, it, if it has any sense, should be looking at the results with keen interest; instead it’s likely to look at them with alarm as they do not sit easily with its misguided marketing mindset of non-sun and beach and indeed nightlife tourism.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.