\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he swish seafront hotels and freshly planted palms on the gleaming promenade might tempt any unwary holidaymaker to book in for Mallorca\u2019s Calvi\u00e1 beach. But step out the back door and the resort is still firmly, as it is better known, Magaluf: boozed-up Britain in Spain, with cocktails by the pint.<\/p>\n Mallorca got most of the Balearics\u2019 3.5 million UK visitors last year: for some residents, far too many. The island has become emblematic of the most heated debate in travel: overtourism \u2013 and how to tackle it.<\/p>\n The island\u2019s Calvi\u00e1 region, home of Magaluf, this week played host to the annual Abta convention for Britain\u2019s tourism industry. And tourism doesn\u2019t get much more industrial than here.<\/p>\n Straight out from an evening bash at the upmarket Nikki Beach club, a short walk through British pubs, kebab shops and purveyors of I \u2764\ufe0f DOGGY STYLE T-shirts led delegates to the party end of the Strip, where bar ambassadors come out in force to lure in the punters.<\/p>\n \u201cBeer and two shots, four euros?\u201d one offers. The Guardian declines. The man reconsiders: \u201cTitties?\u201d<\/p>\n Prominent signs in English advise \u20ac300-\u20ac400 (\u00a3261-\u00a3348) penalties for nudity, fighting and drunkenness on the street. On an October weeknight, the patrolling police aren\u2019t overstretched \u2013 but it\u2019s early yet, only midnight, and as one seasoned resident warns: \u201cIt gets a bit dirty after 2am.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Street signs in English warning of fines for behaviour along the Magaluf Strip.<\/span> Photograph: Gwyn Topham\/The Guardian<\/p>\n But the main business was in the Abta conference hall. Debates on overtourism and homilies on \u201cslow travel\u201d peppered the agenda for an industry grappling with the realisation that, despite the tantalising invitations on the Strip, not everyone wants them there.<\/p>\n Mallorca is one of many destinations where locals have demonstrated against overtourism: this June, thousands marched through the capital in protest. But diagnoses of the problem \u2013 and potential remedies in a country whose annual flow of Britons exceeds all others \u2013 divided the convention.<\/p>\n The strategy in Spain\u2019s new marketing campaign is chasing diversification rather than numbers: urging visitors to go inland, stay longer, try things such as \u201castrotourism and oleo tourism\u201d, watching the next eclipse from a parador and sampling the olive oil.<\/p>\n Steve Heapy, chief executive of mass market holiday operator Jet2, read the runes: \u201cThey want less tourists, but they want them to be richer. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very fair. Why should holidays be only available to a certain subset of the population?\u201d<\/p>\n Prices in lesser-visited Galicia up north were even cheaper, Spain\u2019s tourist office protested. UK director Manuel Butler says: \u201cLike fast fashion, we have had fast tourism \u2026 We have to slow down, have more contact with people and explore more deeply the destination.\u201d<\/p>\n Tourism should be \u201cresilient, inclusive, and beneficial to visitors and residents alike\u201d \u2013 and places such as Magaluf, he says, \u201chave to target a different clientele, people are who not looking to get drunk and make a noise. It\u2019s the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n A decade-long strategy in Palma has massively increased its stock of small upmarket hotels for year-round breaks; it is bidding to become Spain\u2019s next European capital of culture. Calv\u00eda and Magaluf have been following on a similar path: 80% of the hotels are now four or five star. Tens of millions of euros have been invested in cleaning up and improving the beach. And, as Calv\u00eda\u2019s mayor Juan Antonio Amengual Guasp proudly told the auditorium, Magaluf now hosts a literary festival.<\/p>\n It is a difficult balance for a place reliant on tourist income, with expats also a significant population; Amengual says Magaluf has \u201cachieved a harmonious relationship between tourists and residents over the decades, and that has not changed.\u201d But, he concedes, local discontent with tourism was \u201ca reality\u201d worldwide.<\/p>\n <\/span>English breakfast in Magaluf.<\/span> Photograph: Schoening\/Alamy<\/p>\n The UK managing director of the travel giant Tui, Neil Swanson, was conciliatory: \u201cThey are in charge, right? Clearly we\u2019re bringing money into the local economy, but it\u2019s got to work for you in other social ways, and maybe not all tourism has. It needs to feel right for the local community, and for the guests coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n Abta\u2019s chief executive, Mark Tanzer, says: \u201cIf you can extract more value that\u2019s good.\u201d But, he adds: \u201cIf they don\u2019t want us, we won\u2019t go. People like Jet2 will fly their planes somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Heapy says the anti-tourism protests were having an impact, albeit small, after headlines about kill-a-tourist graffiti in Tenerife: \u201cWe\u2019ve had many people writing into us and ringing our call centre saying, is it safe to go to Spain?\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Jet2 could switch more capacity to Morocco, which is cheaper and more welcoming, he says, with some regions in Spain no longer promoting tourism \u201cbecause they\u2019re frightened of a backlash from their populations\u201d.<\/p>\n He says the word overtourism was really describing \u201cpoor tourism management\u201d, citing private rentals such as Airbnb as the bigger problem. \u201cLicensed tourism, people going on a holiday, staying in a hotel etc, it\u2019s perfectly easy to manage it \u2013 you know how many people are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n Spain hopes trips will spread over longer seasons as hotter summers shift demand. Visitor numbers from January to May this year were 9% higher than in 2019, while the peak summer months remained static.<\/p>\n Heapy is unconvinced: \u201cPeople want that Mediterranean holiday in the summer months. I live in Manchester. It\u2019s pretty grim \u2013 it\u2019s cold, dark and wet. I want to get away to the sun, and if it\u2019s hot, well great.\u201d<\/p>\n Others sense further change ahead. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to look to see what\u2019s coming,\u201d says Cathy Sasson, owner of Pirates, a Magaluf landmark whose \u201cswashbuckling immersive dinner show\u201d (\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 \u2013 the Daily Star) claims to have entertained 4 million people over 40 years. \u201cA few years ago nobody served calamari. Now if you\u2019re in a restaurant and it didn\u2019t have salt and pepper squid you\u2019d be disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n Pirates sticks resolutely to one meal: chicken and chips with corn on the cob, even for its late-night adult show. But Magaluf, she says, is \u201cnot what it was in the old days\u201d. Is she sad? \u201cNo \u2013 my dad would never let me out!\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, she says: \u201cNo one wants people to stop drinking. We\u2019re Brits, we go on holiday, and we like a drink. But it\u2019s how they come and how they drink.\u201d<\/p>\n On the Strip, the lunchtime after the night before, barmaid Emma is opening up at Lennons pub and putting the bins out. \u201cI think it probably will change,\u201d she says, smiling a little sadly. Only one punter is here this early, Steve Davis, 75, from Coventry, holidaying to visit family here. He shows a photo of himself 17 years ago dressed as Elvis, in the nearby Three Lions pub: \u201cI couldn\u2019t remember, but my niece said it was in Magaluf.\u201d<\/p>\n These parts, he says, haven\u2019t altered much: \u201cI\u2019ll be here till closing.\u201d His Heineken and Guinnesses, though, are zero-alcohol: \u201cCirrhosis of the liver.\u201d<\/p>\n Ainhoa Paredes Penades, a journalist with Telecinco, grew up in Calv\u00eda, when visiting Magaluf upset her: \u201cAll the people working there were talking to me in English, I felt a stranger in my own island.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, she says, Spanish locals have rediscovered Magaluf. \u201cThis summer, several friends asked me if I\u2019d been, saying the water is really clear. They wanted to transform Magaluf as a better tourist destination \u2013 but now there are more Mallorcans going there with their family as well. You see the change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The swish seafront hotels and freshly planted palms on the gleaming promenade might tempt any unwary holidaymaker to book in for Mallorca\u2019s Calvi\u00e1 beach. But step out the back door and the resort is still firmly, as it is better known, Magaluf: boozed-up Britain in Spain, with cocktails by the pint. Mallorca got most of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[15241,16414,3897,3696,638,11803,9608,5239,16413,714,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-27497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-2am","9":"tag-abta","10":"tag-bit","11":"tag-centre","12":"tag-debate","13":"tag-dirty","14":"tag-mallorca","15":"tag-meets","16":"tag-overtourism","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-stage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}