A fit and ruddy 19-year-old with blond hair and a sheepish smile, James Henderson is tanning on a beach in Magaluf, a town on the Spanish island Mallorca that has long been the destination of choice for young Britons in search of a boozy holiday in the sun. Asked to recount the revelry of the day before, he grins like a man who has just completed a decathlon and is pretty psyched about his performance.<\/p>\n
There was a few hours of \u201cpre-drinking,\u201d as he put it, at his hotel, then on to Punta Ballena, a crammed and gritty strip of pubs, tattoo parlors and lap dance emporiums that bursts with action until dawn every summer day. By the time he and his vacation buddy headed to bed, at 3 a.m., they had each knocked back roughly 20 drinks over the course of 15 hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bit of a strange taste in my mouth this morning,\u201d Mr. Henderson said, proudly describing the minimal aftereffects of this marathon, \u201cbut nothing too bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every summer, Magaluf crawls with young British people in search of a bacchanalia, and they find one in what is essentially a slab of the United Kingdom set in the Mediterranean, except seedier than anything in the dingiest corners of London. There are also G-rated home comforts, like kebab shops, Yorkshire pudding and pubs, all at strikingly affordable prices.<\/p>\n
The annual swarm is both a financial boon and a curse. The Britons here are not the hooligans who occasionally get blanket bans from foreign cities hosting U.K. soccer teams for fear of violent clashes. All of the fun in Magaluf gets posted to Instagram, which means it tends to be more photogenic than destructive.<\/p>\n
But young British travelers are notorious for drinking a lot and spending little, and local reaction to the hard partying herd in Magaluf is split between come hithers (from hotel and bar owners) and go yons (from residents).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a source of continuing tension, not just here but on other islands and in the country\u2019s most beloved cities, including Barcelona and Madrid. Tourism accounts for more than 10 percent of Spain\u2019s annual gross domestic product, the European Commission reports, and the United Kingdom provides the largest chunk of that windfall. More than 18 million British people visited Spain in 2019, about one-quarter of the total population, according to U.K. government statistics.<\/p>\n
Spanish officials have already predicted that 2023 will break records.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have factories here,\u201d said Pepe Carbonell, an owner of Bondi Beach, a bar and restaurant in Magaluf. \u201cWe live off tourists, and the only bad customers are the ones who don\u2019t come to Mallorca.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many tipple in moderation and spend plenty. But places like Magaluf are hotbeds of what is known here as the \u201ctourism of excess.\u201d The most notorious section of all is Punta Ballena, which has generated tales of hedonism for more than a generation.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault is sadly common. There have also been fights and plenty of what is known as \u201cbalconying,\u201d the practice of leaping from a balcony onto another balcony or into a swimming pool. (It\u2019s popular enough that the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office published a warning against it.) Public nudity is so prevalent on this strip that signs here state, \u201cWear no clothes on the street, penalty 400 euros.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are residents who live here, work here, take their kids to school here, and they have to see drunk people all the time, drugs, prostitution,\u201d said Margalida Ramis, campaigner for GOB, a conservation nonprofit. \u201cLiving in this reality is like living in hell if you want a normal life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Typically, officials here broach the topic of low-end British tourism diplomatically, aware that tastes change and that if young people abandon places like Magaluf, the economic consequences will be severe. The future looks precarious. Like much of continental Europe, Spain has been sweltering in record heat this summer, and U.K. tabloids have suggested that tourists are choosing more temperate climates, even if they offer a fraction of the excitement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCosta Del Dull,\u201d read a mid-August headline in The Daily Star, a London-based newspaper, riffing on the name of a southern coastal area of Spain, above a photograph of Hercule Poirot, the fictional Belgian detective. \u201cTourists swap traditional holiday favorites for boring Belgium to beat global warming crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Spanish politicians are too annoyed by the putative boorish behavior of the British tourists to exercise restraint.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have areas of our islands that are clearly marked by the tourism of excess,\u201d Iago Negueruela, counselor of tourism of the Balearic government, which includes Mallorca, told elDiario.es, a Spanish digital newspaper. \u201cThat is what does not have to come back, and we will do everything possible so that it does not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such sentiments led to a decree, passed by the regional government in January 2022, to curtail shenanigans in what were officially labeled red zones on three islands, including Mallorca. Party boats \u2014 a cruise with a D.J. for a fixed price and an open bar \u2014 were banned. So were bikini-clad women dancing in the windows of bars. Two-for-one drink specials were prohibited, too.<\/p>\n
The goal was to increase the amount of luxury tourism, and some pricier hotels have popped up at safe distances from Punta Ballena. But if Magaluf is any indication, once a place is renowned for low-end getaways, the label is hard to shed. Plenty of vendors still cater to the bargain hunters. Mr. Henderson, for instance, bought a round-trip flight and three nights at a hotel for about $600, a price that included three meals, with three drinks at both lunch and dinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd a shuttle to the airport is 10 pounds,\u201d Mr. Henderson\u2019s friend, Toby Euston, 18, said. \u201cThat\u2019s why people come here. It\u2019s cheap, and there\u2019s nice weather.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deals on alcohol remain ubiquitous on the strip. On a recent Tuesday, around 1 a.m., the pavement was chockablock with tourists and what are known here as \u201creps.\u201d These are bar employees whose job is to stand in the middle of the street and rope in passers-by.<\/p>\n
It gives the place the feeling of a noisy, roiling bazaar where the only commodity for sale is liquor. A typical pitch: a triple shot and two more shots for seven euros. Every bar has a variation of this budget beverage offer. And music. A bunch of bars offer \u201csilent disco,\u201d where people listen and dance to music while wearing headphones.<\/p>\n
The entire scene is familiar to Daniel Briggs, an ethnographer from Northumbria University in England, who spent four summers studying young British people in Magaluf for research underwritten by the Foreign Office, the arm of the U.K. government that safeguards citizens abroad. He saw plenty of fights and more than a few accidents that led to hospitalizations.<\/p>\n
To him, the question of why British youngsters overindulge in Magaluf isn\u2019t a mystery. They are generally taking their first vacation without parents, and that creates a sense that everyone is off the leash. And drinking has been central to British culture for centuries. Businesses here understand that, Professor Briggs said. Magaluf is carefully designed to exploit its core demographic.<\/p>\n
\u201cBar owners know they\u2019ve got a group of people who are young and ready to drink, and they\u2019ve presented all sorts of options for them that encourages the worst behavior,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, this is a business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many Britons here know that their reputation for unhinged behavior precedes them. Few seem to mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think British people don\u2019t really care,\u201d said Bella Fisher, a 21-year-old from Britain, who was walking near the beach with a friend. \u201cThey have, like, no standards. Like, they don\u2019t really care about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
But aren\u2019t British people renowned for their reserve?<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil you get to Magaluf,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In other countries, officials have explicitly tried to wave away British tourists. Amsterdam, for instance, started an online campaign in March that showed public-service ads to anyone searching the internet for terms like \u201cpub crawl Amsterdam.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cComing to Amsterdam for a messy night?\u201d read text in one video showing a man being arrested. \u201cStay away.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Spain, anger about the British is more likely to come from residents than government officials. There\u2019s a derogatory word for visitors from Britain \u2014 guiri<\/em>. It\u2019s a shorthand for any British person behaving in what is regarded as a stereotypically British way \u2014 namely, drinking too much, fighting, ignoring social norms like stopping at traffic lights, and spending very little money.<\/p>\n Occasionally, the anger bubbles into something closer to rage. \u201cTourists go home,\u201d someone spray painted not long ago on a hotel in Mallorca. In some cities, posters that ooze sarcasm have been put up that encourage balconying. One uses an image of a stick figure tripping off a balcony; underneath is text ticking through the benefits of this hazardous activity.<\/p>\n \u201cPrevents gentrification,\u201d the poster reads, \u201creduces the risk of heart disease, is LOTS of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Some club and bar owners in Magaluf detect an anti-British bias in laws designed to curtail the tourism of excess. Gerard Pietro, owner of Capitol Bar \u2014 which features a large pink neon sign that reads \u201cPlease don\u2019t do coke in the bathroom\u201d \u2014 says Magaluf should embrace its image and the people drawn to it.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could get 50 customers a night who only bought Dom P\u00e9rignon, I\u2019d be the happiest owner in the world, but that is not what happens here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have young people, and they have the right to party.\u201d<\/p>\n During a recent daytime walk through the strip, Professor Briggs said the place looked pretty much the same as when he last spent a summer here, in 2019. He walked past a fish-and-chips spot called the Chippy, and pubs with distinctly British names, like the Red Lion. He stopped briefly at a bar, the Dirty Dog, after spotting a young man seated in a chair and apparently passed out on the patio. A couple of friends hovered nearby, not especially concerned.<\/p>\n \u201cIs he all right?\u201d asked Professor Briggs.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s fine,\u201d a friend said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow long you guys staying for?\u201d Professor Briggs asked.<\/p>\n \u201cForever,\u201d came the reply.<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Bautista contributed reporting.<\/p>\n