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.